


When the Clock Strikes Twelve

by TheSaddleman



Series: When the Clock Strikes Twelve continuity [2]
Category: 1950s Rock and Roll, Doctor Who, Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: 1950s rock and roll - Freeform, Angst, Bill Haley and his Comets, Canon Compliant, F/M, Fluff, Historical, Historical Person Fiction, Light Romance, Mental Battles, Rock Around the Clock, Spoilers for Episode s09e04: Before the Flood, spoilers for Big Finish story "The Secret History", spoilers for Big Finish story "To the Death", whouffaldi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-11
Updated: 2016-07-11
Packaged: 2018-07-22 20:52:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 23,913
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7453570
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheSaddleman/pseuds/TheSaddleman
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Twelfth Doctor and Clara head to 1954 to stop an old enemy of the Doctor's from preventing the birth of rock and roll.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This story combines two of my interests: Doctor Who and the career of Bill Haley and His Comets, the founder of rock and roll. Although I have had to take some dramatic liberties (the depictions of Milt Gabler and Dave Miller in particular), the basic facts are based on historical accounts of Haley's career. The dialogue and opinions stated by any individuals in this story who are still alive are intended for dramatic purposes only and may not reflect their opinions then or now.
> 
> This story started out as a straight historical, but it ended up going in other directions. In some respects it might be the most Whouffaldi story I have written yet, though it stays within the guidelines of Series 9. This story takes place after "Before the Flood" and before "The Girl Who Died". It also takes place after my original story "Where He Needed to Go" but you don't need to have read that one to follow this.
> 
> This is a very different type of story for me and is one I've wanted to write for years after hearing one too many so-called musical historians claim that Elvis created rock and roll. Time to give someone else the spotlight.
> 
> Many thanks to my friends on AO3 and Tumblr - I don't want to take the chance of omitting anyone's name - who encouraged me as I worked through this rather complex little novella. Hopefully it lives up to the advance billing!
> 
> More comments at the end of the final chapter.

Clara Oswald sank into the Doctor’s easy chair and closed her eyes as she tried to relax.

It had been a long few days. The Doctor had finally made good on a promise to take her skiing at the Olympus Mons Resort. Hurtling down the slopes on post-terraformed Mars several millennia into her future had been an amazing experience — easily in the top ten of her many amazing experiences with the Doctor — but it had also been a mixed blessing. 

Oh, she had enjoyed herself tremendously, and had been frankly gobsmacked at seeing the Doctor execute some amazing moves he claimed had been taught to him by Jean-Claude Killy — though her own skiing didn’t pass without compliment from the Doctor, either. She’d also been amazed at the form-fitting ski suit he’d gotten made especially for her by Edith Head, who designed the costumes for some of her favourite Hollywood films. Though, truth be told, she thought the Doctor didn’t look half-bad in _his_ ski suit, either.

Yeah, it had been fun. And the après-ski scene had been amazing; she’d even coaxed the Doctor onto the dance floor a couple of times. She found that, while the Doctor wasn’t particularly graceful at any of the “modern” dances (then again, neither was she), when the time came to do a waltz and — surprisingly — a tango, they were almost perfectly in synch with each other.

It had been a fantastic holiday, easily rivalling the Orient Express in space, in more ways than one (and minus the angst). After finding herself gazing into the Doctor’s eyes once too often, Clara reflected that, if theirs had been a standard relationship, the whole thing might have ended like one of the old Harlequin Romance novels her gran liked to read. But that wasn’t how she and the Doctor rolled. Instead, they spent their evenings on a balcony sipping Space Champagne (well, that’s what _she_ called it, anyway), watching Phobos and Deimos spin through the Martian heavens, the Doctor’s hypnotic voice recounting the time he once defeated an alien overlord who’d transformed one of the moons into a giant spaceship. For Clara, that was enough for a perfect moment, one she’d have been happy to be time-looped in forever.

But now Clara was paying for it. Sore back, sore feet, sore legs, sore … well, you get the picture. Even the deep softness of her bed aboard the TARDIS wasn’t enough and she’d found herself unable to sleep. The Doctor, wide awake as ever, guided her to his easy chair in the console room.

The luxurious softness of the Doctor’s chair was like heaven (he’d muttered something about it being inhabited by a colony of semi-sentient massage microbes, or something. She’d been too tired to pay attention). She just closed her eyes and let the massage microbes do their magic and, before long, she found herself walking alongside the Doctor in 1795 London, hands intertwined as they explored the Frost Fair. A pleasant memory replaying itself in a dream. She wished they could have stayed there forever.

Everything was perfect until, suddenly, London’s sky was filled with the squeal of something that sounded like a crossbreeding of a giant mosquito and a screaming goat.

Jarred back to the present, Clara’s eyelids popped open. “What the hell? Not now!” Clara muttered, annoyed at the noise and at the Doctor’s apparent and sudden loss of guitar-playing ability. Normally, she found the bluesy tones he tended to favour playing within the TARDIS — at least when she was around — soothing, even sexy and someday she intended to tell him so. Right now, however, his playing sounded to her ears like a pregnant yak with pernicious anemia with her tail stuck in the jaws of an alligator with acid reflux disease and piles. The fact he’d decided to start playing just as her dream was reaching the good part made her even more annoyed.

Clara pulled herself out of the chair and leaned over the railing. “Doctor, what the hell are you doing?” she yelled. She had to yell to be heard over a Magpie Electricals speaker that had been cranked to eleven. That isn’t a euphemism: the Doctor had literally rewired the damn thing so that it _actually went up to eleven_.

It wasn’t until a break in the notes arrived that the Doctor realized that a grumpy five-foot-one swearing machine was operating at full bore behind him.

“Oh, I’m sorry, Clara. Did I wake you?” the Doctor said, in all innocence.

Clara came down the steps and glared at him.

“Look me in the eye and ask me that again,” she said, menacingly. “What was that noise?”

“That, my dear Clara, was rock and roll!”

“No it wasn’t.”

“Excuse me?”

“No it wasn’t. You might _think_ that was rock and roll. But it was just noise. I know you can play better than that. I’ve heard you. Your ‘Amazing Grace’ is, well, amazing, and I’ve heard you playing around lately with a really nice melody that sounds like a love song.”

“It is,” the Doctor said sheepishly.

“Who for?” she teased.

The Doctor quickly changed the subject. “Okay, Miss Oswald, if that wasn’t rock and roll, than what is?”

“You know: Elvis. Chuck Berry. The early Beatles. Cliff Richard. Bill Haley.”

“I wouldn’t expect someone of your age to even know most of those names.”

“Are you kidding? Hello, I’m the kid who had a poster of a Roman philosopher on my wall while everyone else had the Spice Girls, remember? One of my prized possessions is still that Sun Records 45 of ‘I Walk the Line’ that you got Johnny Cash to autograph for me as a birthday present _before he’d even recorded it_. And you still owe me one Sinatra concert, my friend. And anyway, it’s part of my family history; my gran was at the Battle of Waterloo!”

The Doctor rolled his eyes. “Okay, you just said that. Your gran is nowhere near that old unless you’ve been lying to me about your age.”

“No, the _Second_ Battle of Waterloo. Waterloo Station in 1957 when Bill Haley arrived for his first big tour of the U.K. Thousands mobbed the station and the poor guy. My gran still talks about it.”

The Doctor was impressed, and it gave him an idea. “Would you like to see it for yourself? We might even catch a glimpse of your gran.”

Clara’s curiosity overrode her fatigue and her sore backside. “Why not?”

“I thought you were knackered after the skiing.”

“I don’t think I’m likely to get much sleep with that racket you’re playing. Let me grab a couple of Tylenol and put on something more suitable for 1957. And you, ‘Dr. Disco,’ might want to find something more period-appropriate, too.”

“Clara, you don’t mean …”

“Oh yeah. You gotta wear a tie!”

***

The TARDIS emerged from the vortex in an alleyway a couple of blocks from Waterloo Station on 5th February 1957. Clara emerged first wearing a red and white sweater over top of a white skirt that ended just below her knees. She’d intended to go bare-legged except for the iconic bobby socks, but the Doctor had warned her the midwinter weather in London would likely be chilly, so she opted for flesh-coloured tights; anyone getting close enough to tell the difference would have to get through her “Uncle John” first, anyway.

The Doctor had bristled at the suggested alias and Clara had to reassure him it was nothing personal, but would limit the questions. He’d switched out his usual hoodie and shirt ensemble for a black velvet outfit. He’d wanted to go with the burgundy one that Clara liked, but she said he was about ten years too early for that look. And, much to his chagrin, his usually tie-less existence had now been rudely interrupted with a bland-looking piece of Windsor-knotted cloth around his neck. It had been so long since he’d worn one that Clara had had to tie it for him. It took several attempts to get it right; she’d never tell the Doctor she muffed it intentionally, just to have the excuse to spend a little more time in what was for all intents and purposes a clinch. If only the Doctor hadn’t insisted on keeping his hands to himself…

As the Doctor closed the TARDIS door, two things struck him. The first: that this was the first time in many years that he’d visited a place where the TARDIS’ police box disguise was actually appropriate. The second: considering a near riot was supposed to ensue — according to his calculations, within about fifteen minutes, just a couple of blocks away — it was awfully peaceful.

Clara noticed this, too. “Maybe things don’t pick up till Haley’s train arrives at the station,” she suggested. “Are you sure we’re at the right date? It’s not actually 2026 and we’re on some alien space station that just happens to look like 1950s London?”

The Doctor took a deep lungful of London air and instantly regretted it. He coughed loudly. “I’m pretty sure.”

As the couple got closer to Waterloo Station, the more concerned Clara became. Ignoring the Doctor’s assurances that this was indeed 5th February 1957, she ducked into a newsagent and took a peek at a front page. The date jived, and she checked a clock disguised as an advert for Pepsi and it seemed to be the right time she remembered from Gran’s stories: Haley’s train was due to arrive at 2 p.m. and it was about 1:45.

The Doctor and Clara arrived at Waterloo Station to find the place bustling — but no more so than one would expect midway through a Tuesday afternoon prior to the start of the rush. Clara checked the arrivals board and saw a Southampton train scheduled to arrive at 2 p.m. Only five minutes to go.

The Doctor scoffed a bit as he looked around. “Maybe they’re about to throw the world’s largest surprise party and they’re all hiding behind that tree over there? Otherwise, this is the lamest battle I’ve ever been to. No cannon. No horseback riders with swords. The best I can hope for is that one of these commuters has a deep-seated Napoleon complex.”

“I don’t understand, Doctor. I have the date and the time right. This place should be wall-to-wall kids, screaming their heads off.”

The train arrived, right on schedule. A conductor popped open the door to the first passenger car and started helping people offload. As the Doctor stood back, Clara approached the man. “Excuse me. Is Bill Haley on this train?”

The elderly conductor cocked an ear. “Bill Haney?”

“No, Bill _Haley_ , the American rock and roll star. Is he on this train?”

“No, ma’am. Never heard of Bill Haley. One other thing, ma’am: what’s rock and roll?”

***

In silence, the Doctor and Clara returned to the TARDIS. The Doctor seemed somewhat ambivalent about the whole thing. “Maybe your gran misremembered another event. The memory does cheat, you know, Clara.”

“No, Doctor, I know this date by heart and I’ve even seen the newsreel footage on YouTube,” Clara said. “That spot where we spoke to the conductor should have been packed with news photographers.”

The Doctor pressed a switch and spun a monitor towards Clara and, reading his thoughts, she called up a browser window. She knew the Doctor had just linked the TARDIS into the Internet from the late 2010s. 

Search engine queries for “Second Battle of Waterloo” came up blank. Searching for “Bill Haley” was almost as bad. There were some references to Haley being a country singer before he’d recorded “Rock Around the Clock,” which Clara also knew, but she could find no reference to him ever having a hit with that song. In fact, according to Wikipedia, other than recording a few minor hits in 1952 and 1953, Bill Haley spent his life in radio as a disc jockey. She typed in “Rock Around the Clock” but could only find reference to a version from early 1954 recorded by some group called Sonny Dae and His Knights.

“Doctor, I don’t understand …” Clara began, but she stopped short when she noticed an odd look on the Doctor’s face. He was standing next to the Magpie amplifier he usually rested his electric guitar on. But there was no sign of it anywhere.

“Doctor …” she began again. “Where’s your guitar?”

“My guitar is gone because it would seem it never existed. It would appear musical history has been altered, and that means the universe could be at stake.”

“Overselling it a bit, aren’t we?”

“Temporal effects usually do not impact objects within the TARDIS. I have things in here taken from non-fixed moments in time that have been altered, and they are still here, even though in some cases the very planets they came from never existed.”

“Cheery thought.”

“What I’m getting at is, if it’s gone, that means my guitar wasn’t protected. Which means a fixed point is being messed with. The trick now is finding out where the divergent point is and undoing the damage.”

“How do we do that?” Clara asked.

“Quickly, Clara, tell me everything you remember about Bill Haley.”

Clara Oswald, Blackpool’s onetime queen of _Trivial Pursuit_ , thought through any memorized trivia about Haley that came to mind. 

“Started out singing country music in the 1940s. Blind in one eye and adopted an odd hairstyle to distract people from that. Started singing songs that we’d consider rock and roll around 1951 with a group called the Saddlemen that he renamed the Comets based upon a common American mispronunciation of Halley’s name. People consider him the founder of rock and roll because ‘Rock Around the Clock’ was used in a movie called _Blackboard Jungle_ in 1955…”

“That’s it, Clara! You just said you couldn’t find any major references to him doing ‘Rock Around the Clock.’ Look up Elvis.”

Clara typed in the name. According to an online bio on a website devoted to obscure singers of the 1950s, Presley’s career flatlined in early 1956 because he wasn’t able to establish a national foothold on the charts. One article was titled: “Lost opportunity: how an obscure singer from Memphis could have sparked a musical revolution.”

She read the first few paragraphs and got the gist: Elvis was considered too wild, too sexual, for audiences of the day. People were used to the likes of Perry Como and Frank Sinatra, but they were not prepared for Presley’s wild gyrations. He’d been banned from national television after his very first appearance and RCA Records cancelled plans to release an album after his recording of “Heartbreak Hotel” was blocked on radio stations coast to coast.

“Okay, Doctor, this isn’t how things played out at all and you know it.”

“Rose and I once tried to get in to see Elvis performing on the _Ed Sullivan Show_ before we were, uh, sidetracked, and River dated him during his Vegas era, so you don’t need to convince me.”

“River Song dated Elvis.”

“Priscilla turned her down.”

Clara’s eyes went into “ _Oooo-kaaay_ , moving along” mode. “So, anyway, something prevented Haley from recording ‘Rock Around the Clock’ and this sort of caused a domino effect?”

“Must be,” the Doctor said. “Maybe ‘Rock Around the Clock’ made audiences more receptive to the type of sexier stuff Elvis did later. And without Elvis to push it further, the rock and roll movement petered out. Hence, my guitar evaporating into the ether.”

“So what do we do now?”

“I don’t suppose you remember what day ‘Rock Around the Clock’ was recorded, do you?”

***

Milt Gabler stalked back and forth in the control room at the Pythian Temple, a onetime Masonic temple-turned-recording studio in the heart of mid-1950s Manhattan, adding to the already-impressive groove in the carpet. Not for the first time, Gabler wondered if the venue wasn’t jinxed by the ghost of some thirty-second degree Mason who didn’t like the idea of it being used by Decca Records to record “pop” music. And not for the first time, the balding middle-aged record producer wished he’d stuck to jazz.

“Where the hell are they?” he scowled. 

This was unacceptable. When Decca had signed Bill Haley and His Comets a few weeks earlier, right from under Dave Miller’s nose at Essex, he’d been promised a polished, professional group. A replacement for Louis Jordan who’d recently jumped ship for Aladdin. Gabler had been Jordan’s producer for years. He was the man who _made_ Billie Holiday, the Andrews Sisters, even Red Foley, for Christ’s sake. And here he was sticking his neck out for some two-bit swing band out of Chester, Pennsylvania, that played a weird hybrid of rhythm and blues, Dixieland and hillbilly, and couldn’t even be relied on to show up for their first big-time recording session.

“That’s it,” he said to his secretary. “I’m giving them two more hours and if they’re not here, I’m giving their spot to that other new guy, Sammy Davison Jr., or whatever-his-name is.”

***

“What do you mean, we’re stuck on a sandbar?” 

“I’m sorry, Mr. Haley, nothing much we can do until a tugboat arrives.”

Bill Haley slapped his hand against the hood of a car and stalked back to were his cohorts sat looking out on the Delaware River. He was a tall man with a round face topped with a curl of dark hair that he’d adopted as a gimmick back when he was a yodelling champion. He’d kept it when his manager had suggested it drew attention away from a blind, sometimes wandering eye that he’d had since a doctor messed up an operation when he was a toddler. 

Normally, Haley had a jovial face, but there was little to be happy about. They were already late for the recording session as it was, but getting stuck on a ferry in the middle of the Delaware meant the odds of them arriving in time to get any work done was rapidly dropping to nil.

“So remind me; whose smart idea was it to take a ferry instead of driving up to Philly and using a bridge?” he addressed the five men.

Billy Williamson, his stocky, always-jocular steel guitar player, pointed at Johnny Grande with his slight mustache and Ricardo Montalban-esque complexion that helped sell his skill as a piano player. Johnny pointed at Marshall Lytle, the bass player, whose pencil-thin mustache made him look a bit older than his years. Marshall pointed at Joey Ambrose, the Comets’ tenor saxophone player and the “baby” of the group (having just turned twenty), who liked to joke that he was short of stature, but long on hot air. Joey pointed to the athletic dark-haired man sitting next to him — the band’s drummer, Dick Richards. Dick pointed at a seagull that had landed on the rail nearby.

“Very funny,” Haley said. “Well, boys, joke all you like, but we’re screwed if they don’t get us off this sandbar pretty damn quick.”

***

On the New Jersey side of the river, an overweight, balding man stood sentinel on a small pier. There was no one else nearby, but, if there had been, it’s unlikely they would have noticed much about the man. Except perhaps his mode of dress. Although the region was not devoid of monasteries, even in the 1950s, the old-fashioned medieval-style robes — and tonsure haircut — certainly were. 

They also might not have paid much attention to the binoculars the man had in his hands, though, if they’d gotten close enough to take a look, they might have been puzzled at the fact they were like no binoculars they’d ever seen — and likely would not see for another few centuries, at least.

The man held the binoculars up to his eyes, focused on the ferry stuck mid-river and flicked a switch that began to broadcast amplified sound to a Bluetooth earpiece.

“If we don’t get to New York in time for this recording session, we won’t get another chance,” he heard the human named Bill Haley say.

The man smiled. Everything was going according to plan. It had been a simple matter to adjust the ferry’s course by remote control, sending it aground on the sandbar nearly exactly halfway across the river. Soon the cultural history of Earth would be shunted onto another track. After all, they didn’t call him the Meddling Monk for nothing.

His only question now was: where was the Doctor?


	2. Chapter 2

Clara had never been so glad — or frustrated — that the Doctor was a pack rat.

For one thing, the man had an _insane_ collection of old records, dating back to the start of recorded sound. The Doctor was confident his collection included some works by Bill Haley, but it appeared they had gone the way of his electric guitar. In fact a good number of the Doctor’s favourites no longer existed, it seemed, which just served to make him grumpier.

The problem was that, while Clara recalled the date “Rock Around the Clock” was first recorded, be damned if she could call to mind _where_ it was recorded. And she couldn’t call upon the Internet gods to help her out.

“So, by Bill Haley not getting to record one song, all hell never broke lose, basically,” Clara said as she put aside a small stack of Sinatra records for later research.

“Basically. Ah, I found one!” Triumphantly, the Doctor produced a heavy 78-rpm disc with an orange label branded “Essex Records.” He handed it to Clara. “Presumably recorded before whatever happened didn’t happen.”

“‘Crazy Man Crazy,’ manufactured by Palda Record Company, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania,” Clara read from the label. “Not Decca, though.”

“No, but it’s a start,” the Doctor said as he headed back to the console room. He called over his shoulder: “What was the date supposed to be again?”

Clara felt like the biggest musical nerd around as she replied, without hesitation: “April 12th, 1954.”

***

The TARDIS materialized in an alley beside a modest office block in the City of Brotherly Love and the Doctor and Clara emerged. The Doctor remained clad in his slightly sombre attire from London, while Clara had changed into a grey skirt, white blouse and tweed jacket more befitting a business environment. At the Doctor’s suggestion, a small hat was perched on her hair, which she’d pinned up. 

She was adjusting her hat when she realized that somewhere between the record collection and landing, the Doctor had managed to get a haircut, reducing his “floof” (a word she liked to think, but dare not say aloud in his presence) to something more appropriate for 1954. How did he do that? she asked. And, more to the point, where did his tie disappear to? 

The duo climbed the steps into the building and sought out the Palda Record Company offices. Before they went in, the Doctor nodded to Clara and she popped a small white pill into her mouth. It was something he’d concocted after one too many occasions where companions had complained about choking on cigarette smoke, smog, and other fumes during visits to Earth’s relatively recent past. In the 1950s, tobacco smoking was the norm for most people and the only places you found no smoking signs were in areas where exposed gas would make a cigarette smoker go boom quickly. The pill was handy in allowing humans unaccustomed to the atmosphere to blend in without coughing up a lung.

Inside the Palda offices, a young blonde secretary was just pouring herself a coffee as they entered, a filterless cigarette in her mouth.

“May I help you?”

The Doctor reached into his pocket and withdrew his psychic paper.

“Yes, my name is …” — Clara gave him a warning glance as if to say, _No Dr. Funkenstein or Dr. Disco or Judge Dredd this time, please_ — “…John Smith, and this is my associate, Clara.”

The secretary raised an eyebrow as she read the paper and it implanted a suggestion in her mind. “What would the Department of Sanitation want here?”

Clara quickly turned her attention to a wall display of record album covers in order to stop from laughing. Sometimes the results of the psychic paper were the most entertaining part of her adventures with the Doctor.

“Vinyl record production leaves behind a lot of byproducts, resulting in a sizable environmental footprint, so we’re always concerned about waste being diverted from waterways and landfills,” the Doctor riffed.

“Until they come up with an affordable recycling scheme, the problem isn’t going to go away,” the secretary replied as Clara subtly punched the air behind the Doctor. “I take it you want to see Mr. Miller.”

Clara piped up. “ _Yas_ , of course, Mr. Dave Miller. Thank you.” The Doctor gave her a side-glance. Where the hell did she get that southern belle accent?

The secretary took a quick drag of her cigarette. She clearly wasn’t impressed with the accent either. “I’ll see if he’s available.” She walked down the hall.

The Doctor glared at Clara. “Did you eat Scarlett O’Hara for breakfast this morning?”

“Why, sir, _whatevah_ do you mean?”

“Is that the best American accent you can do? I mean, you’re not doing _Gone with the Wind_ cosplay, Clara. Just listen to me, I don’t have an accent at all.”

“You’re joking, _rrr_ -right?” 

The Doctor smiled at Clara. “So Dave, eh? Lucky guess?”

“Random memory. Dave Miller was Haley’s producer when he had his first hit records.”

“You know, Clara, maybe you were born in the wrong decade.”

Clara leaned against the secretary’s desk. “Maybe I was. I’ve always wondered why I’ve had such keen interest in older things. Sinatra. Marcus Aurelius. You.”

The Doctor’s eyes narrowed. “Do you really want me to go back to insulting you again? I’ve been saving up some doozies in case we ever go back to that planet where people insult each other as a base part of their language.”

Clara chuckled. “What I mean is, is it possible that I’m being affected by some of my echoes? Is it possible one of them was Faustina the Younger, Marcus’ wife? Maybe another was a Sinatra groupie while she waited for you to turn up.”

“It’s possible.”

Before their conversation had a chance to proceed further, the secretary returned with a tall light-haired man in a blue suit following close behind. 

“Dave Miller,” the man introduced himself. “I understand you needed to talk to me about a sanitation issue?”

The Doctor stammered a bit. He was rarely able to back out of these lies gracefully.

Clara came to the rescue.

“Actually, we’re here to ask you about Bill Haley,” she said. So much for backing out gracefully, but the Doctor was at least grateful she’d reverted back to her Blackpool-tinged lilt.

Miller nearly dropped his cigarette. “What about Bill Haley?”

“My granny is a big fan and she’s not feeling well, and I promised I’d try and get his autograph.”

“Yeah, well you won’t find him here, that’s for damn sure, because I’d be in the process of kicking his ass up and down the hallway if he was.”

The Doctor cocked his head, “And where might he be, then?”

“Hell, hopefully.”

At this point in the proceedings, Miller began to invoke a series of very colourful invectives against Mssrs. Haley and company that made Clara blush — and she thought she’d heard them all at Coal Hill School — reminded the Doctor of a British government official he’d once met at a party, and are far too crude to chronicle here. 

After filtering out the scatological phrases and expressions of skepticism over whether Haley was actually a member of the species _Homo sapiens_ , Clara and the Doctor were able to piece together that Haley and his band had recently defected from Essex Records to the mighty Decca label of New York City while Miller was out of the country on a business trip. Haley was due to have his first recording session in New York for producer Milt Gabler, which at least narrowed things down, albeit to what was America’s largest city.

Back in the TARDIS, the Doctor asked Clara if the name of the recording studio had popped into her head, but she shrugged a negative. So he accessed a New York City telephone directory for 1954 and called up Decca’s head office. Pretending to be an official from the American Federation of Musicians, he quickly ascertained that the recording session was being held at the Pythian Temple at 135 West 70th Street.


	3. Chapter 3

Solid.

That was the first word that came to mind as Clara craned her neck on the narrow Manhattan street and looked up at the former Masonic hall. Her grandfather had been a Mason and she knew that if there was one thing Masons did better than anyone else, it was build. For a second, she entertained some cruel speculation as to whether the temple would be the last thing standing if a nuke went off over New York.

Although it was a pleasant, sunny spring day, a gust of wind gave Clara a sudden chill and nearly blew the Doctor’s Fedora hat off … _When did he suddenly get a hat?_ Clara thought.

Hand on suddenly-appeared hat, the Doctor raced across the street and Clara followed. Inside and up the stairs they found another receptionist pouring herself another cup of coffee as she took puffs from another filterless cigarette.

“May I help you?” the woman asked and, for a second, Clara wished just once a receptionist would come up with an original greeting like, “Hello, did you know the _myotis lucifugus_ , or little brown bat, when pregnant, can eat its own body weight’s worth of bugs each night? Go right in, Mr. Gabler’s been expecting you.”

The awkward silence that was happening in real life jumped Clara out of her reverie. Oh, right, it was her turn to do the first lie.

“Mr. and Mrs. Smith,” she said — the Doctor nearly choked until Clara shot him another one of her looks to keep his trap shut. “We’re with the American Federation of Musicians,” she lied. “We’ve been sent over to check the paperwork for Bill Haley and His Comets. I understand they’re in the recording studio today?”

“They will be if they ever show the hell up,” came a booming voice from down the corridor. The man approached them. “Milt Gabler. I’m in charge here,” he said, shaking the Doctor’s hand warily and nodding at Clara.

“John and Clara Smith, AFM,” the Doctor improvised, still curious as to why he and Clara had suddenly upgraded their relationship to matrimony. At least he had the jewellery he had started to wear on his ring finger after he last regenerated. He stole a quick glance at Clara and noticed she’d shifted one of her rings to her own ring finger. 

_That’s why you travel with me_ , he thought to himself, before another voice within added, _Among other reasons._

_Stop that. People might start getting the wrong idea of things. Back in your box._

“We don’t need the AFM sticking their noses in right now,” Gabler said with a huff. “All our paperwork is in order and everyone’s dues are paid up. Isn’t that right, Cedrone?”

Gabler nodded over towards a bench where a tall, muscular Italian-looking man sat, his feet propped up on a guitar case.

“Fat lot it does me if Bill doesn’t show up,” Cedrone said. “I’ve been sitting here for hours. Serves me right for driving up ahead, but the missus wanted to do some shopping. I’m beginning to wonder if this is worth the $21 they’re paying me.” He nodded respectfully at Clara and stood up since he’d been forced into an introduction. “My name’s Danny Cedrone, ma’am … sir.” He shook hands with the Doctor and the two mutually sensed the grip of a fellow guitarist.

The Doctor turned to Gabler. “If _he_ doesn’t show up?”

“Yeah, first day of their new recording contract and it looks like they’ve stiffed me. This was their chance and they blew it — sorry kid,” Gabler turned to Cedrone, “I’ll get you on Kaye Ballard’s next session, or maybe I’ll give you a solo session right now. I’ve heard you play and you’re on fire.”

“Thanks for the offer, but without the rest of the Esquire Boys — that’s the name of my regular band, ma’am,” Cedrone explained to Clara, “it just wouldn’t feel right.”

“Whatever. Just start praying Mr. Haley’s Comets come waltzing through that door.”

“Excuse me, Mr. Gabler,” Clara interjected, “but we really do need to see Mr. Haley. Do you know where he is?”

“Not a clue. They were supposed to be in the studio an hour ago. They need time to rehearse and record the A-side.”

“‘Rock Around the Clock’?” Clara asked. 

“That thing? No chance. That’s going on the flip side. No one wants to hear that clock song. I’ve got my paws on a tune about a guy who finds himself alone with a bunch of dames after the end of the world. It’s got sex, it’s got the H-bomb, it sounds like Louis Jordan, it can’t miss. And if Haley doesn’t get here soon, it’s going to someone else and he can go back to hawking refrigerators and sweeping the floors at that radio station back in Chester.”

***

About five miles upstream from where the Comets’ ferry still sat grounded, Buddy Cumberland finally got word that his tugboat services were needed. That damn sandbar was a pain in the ass, regularly causing ferries, shipping boats and pleasure craft to get hung up. Unfortunately, the recession had put the idea of dredging on the backburner and there was also a difference of opinion as to which state “owned” the sandbar, New Jersey or Pennsylvania.

Buddy didn’t mind. Every time something like this happened, he found himself a few hundred bucks to the good. 

So he finished his pre-launch inspection and got ready to set sail down the river. 

Apparently, there were some V.I.P. types aboard the ferry, too. Maybe he’d get a good tip on top of it all.

Buddy settled down in the captain’s chair and reached into his shirt pocket. Ah, damn, forgot my cigarettes. The ferry can wait a couple minutes longer.

As Buddy exited the wheelhouse, he stopped short as he saw a fat man dressed in what looked like a bathrobe standing on the shore, staring at the boat. Buddy shrugged — _eh, it’s Joisey_ — and climbed up onto the dock.

“Excuse me, my fine sir, might I compliment you on having such a handsome craft at your disposal,” the odd man said.

“Thanks, I think,” Buddy said before heading back towards his office where a fresh pack of cigarettes awaited.

By the time he returned to the boat, the odd little man was nowhere to be seen. Probably went home to get dressed, Buddy thought.

Back on board, he entered the wheelhouse, only to find the man sitting in his chair.

“What the hell are you doing in here?” Buddy spluttered.

“Sorry, I was just having a look around. I do hope I haven’t broken anything.”

Buddy looked down to see the remains of the control stick in the man’s hand. The man looked apologetic.

“I’m calling the cops, you’re going to jail and you’re going to pay for that!”

Buddy turned on his heel but, instead of feeling a cool breeze on his cheek, which you’d expect to feel upon exiting a docked boat, instead he felt a burning sensation at the back of his neck and then his cheek felt something else that was cool: the metal of the deck.

The Monk sighed and put his dart gun away and, after dropping a piece of paper next to the captain’s chair, stepped over the unconscious form of Buddy Cumberland, leaving the tugboat as he started to hum “O Mein Papa.”


	4. Chapter 4

“Danny Cedrone … Danny Cedrone …” Clara murmured as they left the Pythian and headed back to the TARDIS, no closer to establishing Haley’s current whereabouts.

“Yes, that was his name, don’t wear it out,” the Doctor said, before his face turned even more somber than usual. He gently took her arm and turned her to face him. “Why, did he remind you of…”

“What? Oh, no, it wasn’t that.” There had been a time not long after rejoining the Doctor after the dream crabs that she’d had a bit of a wobble. Her now-lost boyfriend, Danny Pink, speaking to her in a dream state (which of course was actually her own subconscious as Danny Pink was dead) had told her to miss him for five minutes a day and then get on with her life and she’d followed those instructions, transferring the remainder of her affections to the Doctor (something the Doctor, she felt, might be starting to finally cotton on to, but she couldn’t be certain). For a short time she’d found herself weepy whenever she encountered the name Danny in her travels, or even at school. It was brief, but it had been intense. The Doctor, to his credit, had let her go through the phase. So no, the name wasn’t setting her off. Not in that way. She smiled a thank you to the Doctor for his concern and he smiled back. Sometimes they didn’t need words. 

They continued on but Clara stopped dead in her tracks so suddenly, the Doctor bumped into her. 

“What? What is it, Clara?”

“We have to get back to the TARDIS. Now.”

“Well since we were heading back to the TARDIS anyway, I think it’s a safe bet to say we’re simpatico on this point,” the Doctor snarked.

Back at the TARDIS, Clara raced to the console and called up the late-2010s Internet again. She typed Danny Cedrone’s name into the search engine.

“I feel really guilty for what I hope I see,” she said, casting sad eyes in the Doctor’s direction. She looked back at the screen and slumped slightly.

“Why the long face?”

“Danny Cedrone is dead.”

“Given that you’re looking at search engine results from more than sixty years into the future, the odds of that are probably rather high, sadly, given the average human life span.”

“No, I mean he’s still dead. Even if they don’t record ‘Rock Around the Clock’. As things originally happened, Danny fell down a flight of stairs and died a few months after recording the song. According to this, he’s still destined to die, though in the new timeline he gets hit by a car … next week.”

The Doctor frowned and looked down at the floor.

“I’m sorry, Clara. You know we can’t always cheat death.”

“I know. But if we succeed in getting history back on track, at least Danny gets to live for a little while longer, right? That is some sort of bright side, isn’t it?”

“It’s often the little bright sides that keep me going.” 

A sudden loud beep on the console caused the two to jump. Who’d be trying to contact them here?

The Doctor swung the monitor around and cleared the browser screen to read the message.

“They’re co-ordinates, Clara. Not too far from here, and today.”

“Who from?”

The Doctor shot Clara one of his patented, “I’ll tell you, but you aren’t going to be happy” looks that he usually saved for people infected with incurable diseases. “It’s signed ‘M.’”

“Oh no, it can’t be her,” Clara frowned.

“It could be. We never saw what happened to Missy on Skaro and you and I both know she’s a survivor.”

“No thanks to you.”

“I said I was sorry, Clara. I thought certain Alistair had vapourized her and, when I found out later she was alive, I didn’t want to burden you with it. I didn’t want you going off half-cocked on some roaring rampage of revenge.”

“I keep bloody telling you I don’t need being taken care of,” Clara shot back, sudden anger colouring her cheeks.

“And I keep telling you I have a du-”

“Don’t say it. Don’t you say it. You lied to me about Missy.”

“Yes, Clara, I lied to you about Missy. And you were with her alone for hours on Skaro and I have no idea how long on Earth before you found me at the castle. Why didn’t you kill her then?”

“I could have. Kate put me in charge of UNIT snipers. I only had to give the signal and she’d have been toast.”

“Why didn’t you?” The Doctor seemed both puzzled and a little disturbed at the implication. “Kate told me Missy murdered several of her men in Spain.”

“Do you really need to ask? You taught me to find another way. And anyway, I needed her alive so I could get to you. My Oyster card doesn’t cover bus fare to medieval England!”

The Doctor looked down at Clara as her anger dissipated with the joke.

“Do you know how long I’ve been waiting to say ‘roaring rampage of revenge?’” the Doctor said.

Clara laughed and the Doctor felt her arms wrap around his middle in the closest thing to a bear hug she could manage. Not long ago, the Doctor would automatically throw his arms out like a moro reflex to avoid touching her. Now, he willingly and warmly closed his arms around her, enjoying the hug. 

“Don’t mistake this hug as forgiveness for Missy,” Clara said, her voice slightly muffled by the black velvet. “You owe me a few more alien sunsets before that. You just happen to be conveniently placed and I felt like stretching my arms.”

“Whatever you say, boss.”

“Well, Doctor,” she looked up, though neither wanted to let go yet. “This hug is very nice, but if Missy is messing about with time, we have to stop her, get ‘Rock Around the Clock’ recorded, win Danny Cedrone a few extra months with his family, and get your guitar back. Can’t get any of that done while hugging.”

“Who says? Time machine, remember?”

Clara smiled up at him. And kept hugging.

***

“I don’t even know why I’m bothering to come to the session,” moped Dick Richards as he tossed a toothpick into the Delaware. “I’m just going to sit around while you guys play.”

“Listen, man, I know it’s shitty, but Gabler wants to use a specialty drummer for the session,” said Haley as he leaned on the rail. “At least I was able to convince him to bring in Billy Gussak from Essex as the session drummer, so it’s someone we know at least.”

“But what’s the good of being one of the Comets if you don’t put me on the records?”

“Billy G. doesn’t tour. You’re the one the girls scream at and you inherited your dad’s voice. You’re one of our stars. On record, you’d just be in the background anyway.”

“Maybe I should have stuck to opera, or football.”

“Ever think of going into acting? Bill yourself under your real name and you’d have a sure-fire career on TV.”

Dick, whose real name was Dick Boccelli, laughed. “I can do a great gangster voice, real Edgar G. Robinson-like,” he said. “Just promise me you’ll get me on the next session, at least singing in the background or something.”

“How good are you at playing the triangle?”

“Go screw yourself, Mr. Haley.”

Haley laughed. “Where the hell is that damn tugboat?” He looked at his watch. At this rate, they’d barely have enough time to record a jingle for a soda pop commercial, never mind a hit record.

***

“Well, he’s not dead, at least,” the Doctor pronounced after checking Buddy Cumberland’s slumbering form on the tugboat. 

Clara looked around the wheelhouse and found a framed licence hanging on a hook near the controls — controls that now seemed to be in pieces. “So I take it we can rule out Missy, then,” she said, matter-of-factly.

“Your reasoning?”

“Mr. Cumberland is still breathing. That’s not her style.”

“True, that.” The Doctor stood up. So whoever this “M” is, he or she had some interest in a tugboat, but why? “Whoever left us that message, they’re familiar with space-time co-ordinates and how to send a transmission to a TARDIS.”

“Another Time Lord?”

“Not impossible. I thought they were all trapped in that pocket universe until Missy came along. And I visited a place once where a number of Time Lords were killed after the Time War …” — the Doctor’s face darkened for a moment as he remembered the sentient asteroid known as House — “…so there’s no reason to imagine there might not be others. It could also be a Time Lord messing about before the Time War, too. If we were in Britain in the 1970s, we might have bumped into Missy back when she had a beard and eyebrows nearly as impressive as mine.”

Clara laughed at the mental image. She scanned a small shelf next to the captain’s chair and saw a piece of paper with some notes scribbled on it. “This has today’s date: ‘Grounded ferry, 5 N.M.N.’ What’s N.M.N.?”

The Doctor took the piece of paper from her. “Five nautical miles north, I would imagine. These rivers were notorious for building up sandbars and causing havoc for navigation.”

“So what now?”

“‘M’ wanted us to be here, and to see this, and I wouldn’t be surprised if this note wasn’t from him or her, too,” the Doctor considered. “This boat isn’t going to do any tugging anytime soon, not with that mess of a control console. So I guess we’ll have to use the TARDIS.”

“Won’t that cause a bit of a stir?”

“This is 1954, Clara. UFO mania is at its height. It’ll be par for the course.” 

***

“This solo ain’t going to work, man,” said Joey Ambrose as he put down his sax disgustedly. He’d been wrestling with a solo Haley wanted him to do in “Rock Around the Clock” all through the previous night’s rehearsal back in Chester, but the key was too high. “Can’t we shift the key?”

Haley butted out his cigarette. “What key would you prefer?”

“Whiskey!” chimed in Marshall Lytle.

“It’s too high,” said Joey. “I sound like a goose with a poker stuck up its ass.”

“You always sound like a goose with a poker stuck up its ass,” said Billy Williamson.

“Cool it, guys,” said Haley. “If it’s too high we could try something else. Maybe something involving the whole band, sort of like building the song to a climax.”

“We could do a version of the solo they have on the Sonny Dae version of ‘Clock,’” Joey said. “Just louder and longer.”

“And you’ll still get to lead it,” said Haley. “Sounds good. Now we just have to record the damn thing.”

***

Clara sat in the open doorway of the TARDIS as it skimmed across the landscape, her legs dangling over the side and a pair of binoculars held up to her eyes. She’d decided to ditch the little pillbox hat.

“Clara, you know I hate it when you do that. One of these days you’ll fall out,” the Doctor chimed in as he tried to avoid pockets of turbulence.

Clara just giggled and focused the specs on a boat sitting stationary in the middle of the fast-flowing river. The exposed deck had several vehicles parked on it and she could make out people milling about. Below the surface, she could just make out the grey-ish form of the sandbar.

“We’re right above them,” she called out.

“Can you recognize anyone?”

“What, with these? I’m the Impossible Girl, not Supergirl.”

“Push the blue button.”

Clara pressed a switch on the side of the binoculars and nearly fell out as she suddenly found herself zoomed into an elderly man’s comb-over on the boat below. “Whoa!”

The Doctor shuffled his feet a little. “Or was it the green button?” he mumbled. 

With a glare in his general direction, Clara pushed the other button. This time the binoculars gave her a clearer view of the people on board the deck. Most of them were wearing hats, which didn’t help identifying anyone until one of the men removed his and Clara caught sight of a distinctive comma-like curl of dark hair against a broad forehead. He appeared to be conducting a shorter man who was playing a saxophone.

“That’s him. That’s Bill Haley,” Clara chimed. 

“I’ll move the TARDIS in closer. We should be able to shift the boat off the sandbar using the tractor beam.”

Clara raised an eyebrow. “We have a tractor beam. Like a full-blown Star Trek tractor beam.”

“The Star Trek tractor beam is nothing. I once moved an entire planet using mine.”

“Which planet?”

“This one.”

“Oh.”

The Doctor pulled a knob, flipped a switch, finessed a dial — and suddenly found himself flung to the floor, his arms paralyzed in shock.

“ _Doctor!_ ” Clara cried out. She bolted to his side and managed to stop him from slamming his head into the deck. “What the hell happened?”

“Feedback. The TARDIS has locked me out.”

“Why would she do that?”

“Why don’t you bloody ask her yourself? How do I know?” The Doctor scrambled to his feet and shook his arms to get feeling back into them. He pulled a handkerchief out of a pocket and wrapped his fingers in it before delicately reaching out to the keyboard. When nothing happened, he entered the command for status report.

“We’ve been hijacked, Clara. The TARDIS is moving on her own.”

“Where?”

“Nowhere in time, sideways in space. About a half mile, it would appear.”

Whoever was piloting the TARDIS remotely was out of practice, the Doctor reflected as the ship made a hard landing that sent him back down to the floor.

“Whoa!” With a yelp, Clara lost her footing and landed on top of him, winding him. “Sorry,” she mumbled before taking a few seconds longer than she probably should have to get off him. The Doctor’s keen eyes failed to miss her slight blush.

The Doctor climbed to his feet and looked at the console and confirmed it was in lockdown. “Guess we have to look outside.”

“You know, I hate guns as much as you do, but there are times I wish you had something to protect yourself with in situations like this. You don’t know who is outside.”

The Doctor’s jaw dropped. “Clara, have you learned nothing in all these years you’ve been with me? You were the one who was just talking about finding another way.”

“It’s just, one of these days you’re going to take one risk too many, trust one person too many. And I … I told you at the Drum that I don’t want to lose you. Not for a senseless reason, anyway.”

“I’ll be fine, Clara. You better be careful or before long you’ll be telling _me_ that you have a duty of care.”

“Maybe I do.”

The two locked eyes with each other for a moment before the Doctor mumbled, “We should, you know … bad guys and stuff.”

“Yeah. Bad guys and stuff.”

Although exiting the TARDIS unarmed was not up for negotiation, the Doctor did take Clara’s paranoia under advisement and, for the first time in his living memory, he pushed the TARDIS exterior door _outward_ , forming an impenetrable shield between himself and whoever waited outside. 

Still standing by the console where the Doctor had asked her to wait, Clara gave it a puzzled glance as a rainbow of coloured lights suddenly flickered and the console beeped, almost as if the TARDIS was happy.

“What do you see, Doctor?”

“Oh, _come on_!” the Doctor moaned.


	5. Chapter 5

Outside the TARDIS, the Monk sat on a bench, eating from a box of Cracker Jack. He stood up when he noticed the Doctor glaring at him.

“Doctor! How pleasant to see you again! You’ve changed your face. I preferred your Oscar Wilde look, myself.”

The Doctor stepped away from his ersatz shield. “Hello, Mortimus.”

“Who are you talking to?” Clara said as she approached the exit. The Doctor considered telling her to go back inside but decided that was a hopeless cause.

“Clara, meet Mortimus, otherwise known as the Monk. His hobby is messing about with history for fits and giggles. We went to the Academy together.”

“So you mean he’s…”

“Yeah, unfortunately, he’s a Time Lord.”

The Monk made a chivalrous bow in Clara’s general direction.

“Life isn’t fair, Clara,” the Doctor continued. “There were, or are, billions of Time Lords, but the only ones I tend to run into are the bad ‘uns. Missy, the Monk. Why can’t I run into someone like Romana, or Rodan? I’d even take the Rani; at least when he regenerated into a face like Brian Blessed, he became the life of the party.”

“Who’s Missy?” the Monk inquired.

“The Master after he had the … ‘thing’ happen,” the Doctor explained, momentarily surprised by the question. If he didn’t get the memo, odds are he’s not in league with her then. Lucky break.

“Ouch,” replied the Monk, shifting his legs slightly. “I hope she remembers to wear loose-fitting pants the next time she regenerates. When High Chancellor Flavia had the ‘thing’ happen, he couldn’t sit comfortably for a week afterwards … and I bet your winsome human friend has no idea what we’re talking about.”

Clara’s eyes flashed. “This ‘winsome human friend’ is about three seconds away from turning you into a nun.”

“Oh please, my dear. No need to be that rash. It’s not every day I get to meet one of my own kind. Especially one I share a … history with.”

“What kind of history?” said Clara.

The Doctor considered whether to answer or not. “The Monk travelled with one of my companions. Her name was Tamsin. It didn’t end well.” Clara caught the shadow crossing his features. 

“Mention Tamsin’s name in my presence again and I might forget that we’re supposed to be cordial to one another,” the Monk said coldly.

“What do you want, Mortimus?”

“Why, your TARDIS of course. Even though I know Gallifrey still exists — word travels fast about what you _really_ did to end the Time War — TARDISes are still rare jewels. And when mine died during a fact-finding expedition (yes, that’s as good a phrase as any), I was stuck on this rock in the middle of an unenlightened age. I’ve been biding my time for centuries.”

“Until…” Clara prompted.

“An opportunity arose to avail myself of your fine vessel, so that I can leave Earth and return to the stars. Maybe even find Gallifrey.”

“Been there, tried that; it’s not that easy,” the Doctor said. “How come you waited until 1954 to try this? I’ve been to Earth hundreds of times in the last few centuries. In fact my…” — he did a quick calculation on his fingers — “tenth...ish…self was here because of a thing just last year, around the time of Elizabeth II’s coronation.”

“What do you take me for, an idiot? Maybe _you_ slept through Consequences class at the Academy, but I didn’t. I couldn’t snag any of your earlier selves because I couldn’t take the chance of preventing Gallifrey from being saved. I could only steal her after Mr. Bow-Tie and Chin had shuffled off his near-immortal coil. And it’s not as if I had access to GPS. I didn’t find out that you’d been in London with the lizard detective, freshly regenerated, until damn near a year later because I was in China at the time. But I’m a patient man, and I decided to have some fun — while maybe taking a bit of revenge for Tamsin at the same time. I’m a man of simple needs.”

“Her death was not my fault.”

“When someone causes the death of somebody you love, I doubt that you will be the forgiving sort, no matter what excuse they give you.”

The Doctor felt something warm in his left hand. He looked down and realized Clara was clasping it. Taking a chance the Monk wouldn’t follow through with his threat, he took a deep breath. “Tamsin Drew was one of my companions during my eighth life — the one before ‘Captain Grumpy,’ not long before the Time War kicked into high gear — and she also travelled with Mortimus for a while,” he explained. “She was killed by the Daleks and the Monk blamed me. He later tried to break Time itself to undo her death by wiping me from history.”

The Monk continued his story. “If at first you don’t succeed. So I did my research on you. Although my TARDIS was dead, I was able to salvage her time-space visualizer; I kept my eye on you. I particularly noticed how you loved to play the guitar. Like that time you visited that diner in Nevada. You were with her, in fact,” he nodded at Clara, who shared a puzzled glance with the Doctor; neither of them had any idea what he was talking about. 

He continued: “I noticed as you played there was a big picture of Elvis Presley on the door and I thought: what if Elvis had never existed? You wouldn’t be able to play your guitar and your lovely romantic melodies for pretty young ladies anymore. But just killing Elvis when he was a teenager or stopping his grandparents from meeting had no finesse, no style. And, to be honest, straight killing lost its appeal after Tamsin died. So I decided to be sneaky about it and set up a rewrite of history that wouldn’t necessarily kill anyone, but would still have a profound impact on this little world.”

Clara interjected: “So by stopping Bill Haley from recording ‘Rock Around the Clock,’ which opened the door to the public accepting this kind of music, the rock and roll era doesn’t happen — or, at least, doesn’t happen on the time frame we know, and Elvis misses the boat.” She was actually a little impressed, which made her feel a bit ashamed. She wasn't supposed to be impressed by the bad guys.

The Monk tapped the end of his nose with his index finger. “And I figured for someone with a love of rock n’ roll, like your silver-haired boyfriend here, that’s one way to catch his attention.”

Clara wrinkled her nose. “But I don’t get it. The only reason we found out about all this was because the Doctor woke me up in the middle of the night with his guitar a few hours ago and we got to talking about my gran and we up and decided to visit 1957. It was totally random. He could have just as easily been singing Venusian lullabies … again.”

“Yes, I know,” the Monk said. The penny dropped and Clara shuddered at the thought of someone eavesdropping on her private moments … _their_ private moments. If the Monk had seen that, does that mean he’d also watched her that one single time that she … while the Doctor was … she felt sick. The Doctor squeezed her hand, reassuringly.

“But you don’t have to mess about with the history now,” the Doctor said. “I’m here, aren’t I? I can get you away from Earth and take you anywhere you want to go. We just need to get that ferry unstuck so they can be on their way.”

“You missed the ‘revenge’ part, didn’t you? I’m going to take your TARDIS and strand you here. I’m not going to kill you, but I’m going to trap you on the slow path. I know you hate staying in one place for too long, so it’ll be torture for you. And I know you — you might talk a good game about playing by your own rules, but even you won’t contaminate the timeline by seeking help from one of your other selves.”

“What about Clara?”

“No harm will come to her. I’ll take her back to her own time. I have no quarrel with her and even though you took away the woman I loved, Doctor, I’m not an eye-for-an-eye type of man. If you’re patient, you’ll see her again in about sixty years.”

“I’m not going anywhere,” Clara said.

“Yes you are, Clara,” the Doctor said. “Go back to your own time. The Monk may be a meddler, but you can take him at his word. I’ll catch up with you later — and I mean that literally. I spent a hundred and fifty years in a stasis chamber to get back to you at the Drum. Sixty-three years or so will be a drop in the bucket. Think of it as a vacation. I might finally get some fishing done.”

“Good. I’ve always wanted to learn how to fish. You can teach me.”

“No, Clara. You don’t belong here.”

“If you’re here, then I belong here. I’m the one who was born in the wrong decade, remember? I’ll be fine.”

“But your home…”

“I told you after we stopped the Sea Devils at Ravenscaur School…”

“…that the TARDIS was your home.”

“That’s not what I meant, and you know it.”

That stopped the Doctor for a moment. “Out of the question. You’re going back with him. Your students need you.”

“Now you listen to me…” Clara got up into the Doctor’s chest (seeing as she was too petite to get up into his face). 

The Monk cleared his throat. “Would you two like to be alone? Relationship counsellor? Something?” 

The Doctor stopped glaring at Clara and turned his glare towards the Monk. “Can we at least get Haley’s ferry off the sandbar so history can proceed as normal? You’ve got what you wanted. We know of at least one person who will die prematurely if we don’t let those men get to the recording session.”

“No. I won’t do anything.”

Clara advanced towards the Monk, but the Doctor held her back. “You have what you want, now let history play out,” she said.

Anything else she was going to say was cut short as she saw the small pistol emerge from the Monk’s robes.

“You never fail to find new ways to disappoint me, Mortimus,” the Doctor said. Pointedly, he did not raise his hands. Clara saw this and forced herself to keep calm, her own hands also unraised.

“I find people are more likely to obey if I point something at them that doesn’t have a stun setting. Shooting you would probably just make you regenerate into someone even grumpier,” the Monk said as he swung the gun in Clara’s direction. “I assume this young lady lacks the same ability.”

“Doctor…”

“So much for losing the taste for killing,” the Doctor growled.

“I never said I would enjoy it,” the Monk replied.

The Doctor took the TARDIS key out of his pocket and slowly walked toward the Monk, who took it with his free hand. “And your sonic screwdriver, please.”

“I don’t have one anymore,” the Doctor said, truthfully. “Gave it up. Too many ripped inner pockets. Nearly got killed once when it fell into the lining of my jacket. Another time the end came flying off and I had to send Clara into the bushes to find it. It got embarrassing. So I make do without.”

The Monk shrugged. “No matter.” He motioned towards a nearby gravel road. “If you follow that trail, it will take you back to the dock. I estimate that you have approximately one hour from now to get there, repair the tugboat, and head back upstream to rescue Mr. Haley and his Comets with enough time for them to make their appointment,” the Monk said. On seeing the Doctor and Clara’s puzzled expressions, he added: “I’m not stupid, Doctor. I know it’s a fixed point, but it’s only a fixed point for Earth culture. If ‘Rock Around the Clock’ is never recorded, the rest of the universe will keep on spinning, and so will this little planet. But I’m always interested in seeing how people rise to a challenge. I’ll be looking on with great interest from your … sorry, _my_ TARDIS to see if you are successful or not in setting things straight. If you make it, great; if you don’t, it won’t be the end of the world.”

“Let me say goodbye to Clara.”

The Monk nodded and stood back respectfully as the Doctor took Clara’s hand in his.

“I always thought our goodbye would be a bit more dramatic,” Clara said softly. “Doctor, I –”

The Doctor locked eyes with Clara. “Does it really need saying?”

“No,” Clara smiled, her eyes tearing up. “But I meant what I said before. You’ve made yourself essential to me. You better be waiting for me when I get back to my time. I can’t even imagine …Wednesdays would just be another day of the week!” She tried to laugh at the joke but found she couldn’t.

“I hate endings.” And with that, the Doctor wrapped her in his arms, his cheek to hers and placing his mouth close to her ear.

“Room 6,” he whispered. And then, he added, “Remember this,” and he kissed her cheek. And it wasn’t just a peck. He held it for several seconds. If the Doctor had worn lipstick, he’d have left a lip mark. 

When he broke the embrace, Clara was gasping. He did that just to cover up the whisper, right? Of course, that was the only reason he did it. Of course.

“Mortimus,” the Doctor growled. “You have given me your word. If any harm comes to Clara Oswald, I will find out. And then I will find you.”

“Fifty-seven minutes, Doctor. How fast can you run in that body?”

With a nod and smile to Clara, the Doctor turned on his heel and sprinted towards the direction of the dock.

Clara and the Monk watched the Doctor’s unusual gait as he raced away.

Clara sighed. “Yes, I know what it looks like.”

As soon as the Doctor was out of view, Clara saw the pistol aimed in her direction again. For a moment she had the terrible thought that he was going to shoot her down.

“Do you have your own TARDIS key?” the Monk asked.

“Yes.”

“Use it, please.”


	6. Chapter 6

“I’m starting to wonder if I didn’t make a big mistake,” said Bill Haley as he sipped a cup of coffee provided by the ferry captain after he’d reassured the singer once again that, yes, a tugboat had been summoned and no, he didn’t know when it would arrive.

His fellow coffee-drinker was Johnny Grande, who was writing down some final notes regarding the arrangement for “Rock Around the Clock” (he was the only member of the Comets who actually read sheet music, so his job was to keep track of the arrangements. He’d just scribbled out Joey’s planned sax solo and was sketching in its replacement).

“Miller was never going to give us the same exposure Decca can,” said Johnny, who was one of Haley’s founding business partners in the Comets, alongside Billy Williamson. “And Decca can afford the better sound equipment and studios. I don’t know about you, Bill, but I’m tired of just playing the high keys on the discs.”

“Yeah, but Miller was a sure deal. He got us a hit with ‘Crazy Man Crazy’ and even managed to get it on TV for that drama show with that new kid, James Dean. He was even talking about putting out a long-play album of our stuff. He said we could be the first band to put out a rock and roll album.”

“But he blew his stack every time you tried to record ‘Clock,’” Johnny noted. Haley had tried a couple of times to record the song at Essex after it had gone over a treat at their gigs in Wildwood, New Jersey. His friend, Jimmy Myers, owned the song alongside its writer, Max Freedman, and it was always meant for Haley but, for whatever reason, Miller disliked the bombastic promoter who seemed to keep coming up with new accounts of his exploits during the War.

“I know, I know,” Haley said. “And then that guy Sonny Dae got it out on wax before us. Our version’s gonna be seen as a cover song no matter what we do. I wanted to start Decca with something new. And it’s bad enough Gabler’s making us record something else for the top side first. I haven’t a damn clue how to handle a song like ‘Thirteen Women.’ I’m not Louis Jordan. When we tried it out last night it just felt weird, and Milt’s added extra lyrics so we can’t really rely on Dickie Thompson’s original disc.”

“Well, I think we still got a sweetheart deal from Decca,” Johnny continued. “Mitch Miller and Columbia have no damn clue how to handle rock and roll so I think we dodged a bullet. At Decca we got Gabler, and that guy was doing rock and roll with the Andrews Sisters years ago and didn’t even know it!”

“Yeah, well we’re well and truly screwed now. Gabler’s going to tear up that contract, Miller already wants to kill me for bailing on Essex — I’ll end up back on the yodelling contest circuit again,” Haley said.

“I think you should throw some yodels into ‘Rock Around the Clock’ — might start a new fad!” Johnny laughed. 

“I’d like to see you try to write down my yodelling for the sheet music!”

“It’s true poetry, man.”

“Keep talking like that, Johnny, and I’ll follow through on my threat to write a song called ‘Rock Chicken Rock.’”

“Oh, Christ, anything but that.”

***

Despite a life of running down corridors, the Doctor was never really one for marathon racing. Sure, his respiratory bypass system and twin hearts gave him an advantage of stamina and even speed approaching what might be considered “superhuman” when he put his mind to it (and didn’t have short, roundish human companions who had trouble keeping up at the best of times, though there was that one he swore was part-gazelle…), but he was still sweating proverbial gobs of blood by the time he arrived back at the tugboat, his crumpled jacket now clenched in one fist and his shirt nearly soaked through.

He leaned against the railing, wheezing. He checked his watch. Five miles in fifteen minutes. _Eat your heart out, Usain Bolt_ , he thought. 

And then that damnable second voice chimed in from the back of his consciousness. _But you’re wheezing, out of breath. Aren’t you glad Clara can’t see you now? How can you ever imagine she’d want you after seeing you in this state?_

The Doctor’s ego tried to come up with a creative comeback for his id, but he was too tired to settle on anything more original than, _Piss off_.

He forced himself to take a deep breath and calm his hearts as he boarded the tug. He found Buddy Cumberland still out cold where they’d left him (the Doctor felt vaguely guilty that they hadn’t at least covered him with a blanket earlier so he didn’t catch a chill before he came to). 

Donning his sonic sunglasses (the fact the Monk hadn’t referenced them suggested he _hadn’t_ been spying on him all the time, so there was hope he never saw that one time with Clara when they had … eh, better not think about it), he quickly scooped up the pieces of the control console and started to put the multi-piece jigsaw puzzle back together again. 

He found the more he concentrated on the work the less he worried about whether he overstepped a boundary when he kissed Clara. But he’d had no choice, not if he wanted her to be able to get into Room 6.

***

“So what did the Doctor tell you?”

“Excuse me?”

The Monk entered coordinates into the TARDIS console, after having inserted the control rod that he’d used to force her landing earlier remotely (something else he’d cobbled together from his now-deceased TARDIS). Clara, to her surprise, was not tied up or handcuffed. She just stood on the opposite side of the console, staring at the man.

“When the Doctor kissed you, I know he whispered something to you. He thought he’d covered it with that kiss but the expression on your face gave it away.”

“He … he told me he loved me,” Clara lied the first thing that came into her mind.

“Is that something he normally says? Last I heard, the Doctor wasn’t into that sort of thing anymore.”

 _Now comes the gamble, Oswald. How much_ did _the Monk play the voyeur with us?_

“Oh, he tells me all the time,” Clara said aloud. _Rule No. 1 of expert lying: believe the lie. Rule No. 2: go big or go home._ “We’re married.”

“You don’t act like you’re married.”

“No, really. See?” Clara raised her left hand where — thankfully — she’d had the forethought to relocate one of her rings when she’d made up the fiction of being married to the Doctor earlier. The ring had been a graduation gift from her father and, to the unenlightened eye, could pass for a modest wedding ring. “You saw the Doctor’s ring, too, right? We got married after we were nearly killed by a species of dream crabs at the North Pole. Well, actually we eloped first. But then we decided to make it legal.” _Okay, just enough real detail to make the lie convincing, Oswald. Probably best not to push it by mentioning Santa. My god, though — we really did kind of elope, didn’t we._

To her surprise, the Monk didn’t scowl, didn’t have a snarky comeback and — crucially — he didn’t call her a liar ( _So maybe he wasn’t watching me after all that one time_ , Clara thought). He just simply said, “I’m not surprised. You’re very much his type. You remind me of the President’s daughter, actually. Same eyes. If I’d had a similar opportunity with Tamsin, I’d have taken it. I almost feel guilty separating you two like this. But knowing him he’ll probably be standing on your doorstep with a bouquet of flowers.”

“You don’t sound very committed to the cause. Your heart doesn’t seem to be in it.”

“My only ‘cause’ is I want to get the hell off this planet.”

“Well, while you’re doing that, do you mind if I change out of these clothes? The tweed is starting to itch.”

“Don’t try any funny business,” the Monk said.

Clara turned to face him. “Did you _really_ just say that?”

“I must confess, that sounded better in my head.”

“Uh-huh.” Clara turned and headed out of the console room and tried to remember the general direction of Room 6 as she hoped whatever was in there would be useful.

***

With a click, the last piece of the tugboat’s controls snapped into place. The Doctor pocketed his specs and checked his watch. It was going to be tight. Not only did they have to motor upstream for several miles, he also had to factor in the time it would take to actually shift the ferry.

Fortunately he’d taken the liberty of enhancing the boat’s fuel consumption efficiency. Mr. Cumberland wouldn’t be setting any water speed records, but it might shave a few minutes off the travel time.

Speaking of whom, the Doctor glanced back at where Buddy was slumbering, just in time to feel four knuckles slam into his face.

He fell out of the chair and hit the deck, momentarily stunned.

“What the hell are you doing on my boat? You and the other feller,” Buddy said as he stood over the Doctor. “You cold-cocked me the last time, but you ain’t gonna hit me again.”

“Please, Mr. Cumberland — may I call you Buddy? — I’m not here to harm you and the ‘other feller’ isn’t here anymore. He’s … taken my girl and run away.” _Gods, that sounds lame_ , said the ego. _Not a lie, though,_ replied the id.

“What were you doing just now?” Buddy was still unconvinced.

“Fixing your damn boat, pudding brain,” the Doctor growled. “And right now there are a bunch of guys waiting for you on a ferry and if we don’t get there soon, they’re going to be late for a very important appointment.”

Buddy cast a dubious glance at the Doctor and picked up a crowbar that was leaning against a bulkhead. He held the Doctor at crowbar length as he started the boat.

“I should warn you …” the Doctor began.

“About wh-” Buddy was thrown back into his seat as the tug took off at speed. The crowbar lurched out of his hands and the Doctor caught it. Buddy eyed him as he laid the tool on the deck.

“I said I’m not going to hurt you. Let’s go rescue a ferry, shall we?”

***

Room 6 had a wooden door … and no lock, no doorknob, no activation panel, no red button to push — nothing. Clara tried knocking. She stared at the door in case maybe there was a hidden retinal scan. She even tried stroking it. “Open sesame” didn’t work, either.

She looked down the corridor nervously. She knew she only had a few minutes before the Monk noticed she was gone. She’d already worked out the usual “took the wrong turn” excuse in case he came looking for her, but she also knew she wouldn’t get another chance to track down Room 6 if he did.

Well, she’d found Room 6. Well done, Clara Oswald. Why the hell did the Doctor send you to a place you couldn’t enter?

Thoughts of the Doctor flooded her mind. Including the warm pressure of his lips against her cheek. How nice it felt. How it made the light hairs on her forearm become slightly erect.

 _Remember this_ , he had said before he kissed her.

Before he had kissed her on the cheek. So vivid in her memory now. 

_Remember this_. The kiss.

With a click, the door to Room 6 opened, making Clara jump back.

Coincidence? Delayed lock? She didn’t care. She was through the door before it had a chance to close.

***

“Can’t this lump of lead go any faster?” the Doctor said as he paced the wheelhouse.

“Do you want to get out and swim? Let me do my job,” Buddy growled back. He still had a headache from being knocked out and having an antsy old guy jumping around the cabin didn’t help.

The Doctor was more worried about Clara than getting to the ferry on time. Had she listened? Had she understood? Had she remembered? By rights, he could know any moment if she had. If nothing happened … and if she _wasn’t_ waiting for him six decades from now… He usually tried to compartmentalize such thoughts, to focus on the matter at hand, but found this time he was failing, once again, where Clara Oswald was concerned.

 _You need therapy_ , his id mumbled. His ego, disturbingly, had no comeback to that.

“There’s the ferry,” Buddy said, breaking the nervous silence.

***

On board the ferry, there was a flurry of activity from the crew after someone spotted the tug. The passengers gave a cheer.

“About damn time,” Haley said, his mood not helped by the fact he’d run out of cigarettes. He looked at his watch and wondered how fast his old beater could go. They’d have to set a land speed record to get to New York in time.

***

Back at the Pythian Temple, Danny Cedrone and Billy Gussak finished up their third game of low-stakes pinochle as Milt Gabler turned to his secretary and shoved a fresh cigar into his mouth. “Okay, that’s it. We’ve been stiffed. I’m going home.”

“Yes, Mr. Gabler.”

The producer went over to Danny and Billy. “Sorry, guys. You can stay and wait for Haley if you like. Otherwise, I’ll be in the bar down the street. I’ll make sure you get a little something for wasting your time. At least _you_ showed up.” 

The phone rang on the secretary’s desk. “Decca Studios … yes, he’s still here … one moment please. Mr. Gabler? Call for you.”

***

Clara’s eyes took a moment to adjust to the dim lighting. She could make out wood panelling, a wooden railing, and what appeared to be a wooden version of the TARDIS’ control console. If Jules Verne had been a Time Lord (who was she kidding, he probably was), he might have devised a TARDIS looking like this.

As she stepped further into the room, the lights brightened and confirmed Clara’s suspicions. This was indeed another console room. Much smaller than the one she was used to, but still recognizable (and not as creepy as that coral-style one she’d experienced for a few moments when she found herself with three Doctors for the price of one). One thing that struck her as standing out was a sweater draped over a chair, emblazoned with the initials “SJS.” There was also a yo-yo lying haphazardly on the floor. Feeling a slight chill — and trusting that the TARDIS wasn’t the type of place where moths flourished — she draped the sweater over her shoulders.

_Okay, Doctor, so you’ve sent me to another console room. What do I do now, just hide in here and hope you haven’t kissed the Monk recently?_

Clara turned around and let out a yelp as she found herself face-to-face with a tall man in a dark brown coat, thick-looking trousers, a multicoloured scarf wrapped around his neck, and a voluminous head of dark hair. It took a moment for Clara to recognize one of the Doctor’s older faces — the fourth Doctor, if she recalled correctly, though she noted he also resembled the Undergallery’s Curator from back in the late 2010s — and another moment to realize it was just a holographic projection, like the TARDIS interface she’d argued with during a ghost-busting trip to the 1970s, not long after she’d first met the Doctor.

The projection spoke with a sonorous voice that momentarily made Clara decide her Doctor no longer ruled the roost in the “voice as mood lighting” department.

“Hello there. If you’re seeing this, it probably means we’re in dire peril; I’m dead or otherwise indisposed, and I’ve directed you here,” the projection said. “Hopefully, I won’t need to use this for a while, so, if you don’t recognize me, hello — I’m the Doctor, the fourth of my name, like they say on _Game of Thrones_. Do you have _Game of Thrones_ yet? Too naughty for my tastes, personally, but the little girl with the pointy sword is intriguing … sorry, where was I? Oh, yes. This is the secondary console room. Unlike other desktop archives that have only limited function, this console room is designed for use in the event the main console room is compromised or undergoing repairs. It operates independently from the main console as well. From here, you can override the main console if someone is playing mischief.”

The Doctor hologram appeared to lean in conspiratorially. “Knowledge of this console room is a closely guarded secret — _shh_!” He put a finger to his lips. “I created it myself, you know. It’s not on the official schematics. So if you’re here because I’m not, it means I trust you implicitly. Congratulations! I’ll leave you now. I assume I’ve told you how to proceed from here. Be one amazing lucky guess if I knew, wouldn’t it?” the Doctor’s image barked a laugh. “Goodbye!”

“No, wait, you haven’t told me any-” But the message fritzed out and she was alone again.

“Thanks, Doctor. I knew I could always count on you,” Clara mumbled.

By now, the Monk had to have noticed she’d gone astray. So what could she do?

Gingerly, she touched the console, feeling vibration under her fingertips. It got stronger as she moved her hand in one direction. Almost as if it was guiding her.

With nothing else to lose, she played along, dragging her fingers along the console counter-clockwise until the vibration turned into a steady, regular pulse that reminded her disturbingly of a heartbeat.

A set of six small metal latches clicked open surrounding a square panel, making Clara jerk her hand back defensively. Clara removed the panel and saw the gelatinous psychic interface below.

“Doctor, you clever boy,” she said aloud.

Although Clara had been learning how to pilot the TARDIS for quite a while now, using the psychic interface was the only way she knew how to _truly_ fly her from A to B. She once flew the TARDIS to Gallifrey in the Doctor’s past, and on another occasion took the initiative to solve a paradox involving several Doctors and had to track down several of his prior companions. But she still couldn’t help feeling like she’d just stepped into a David Cronenberg film whenever she had to stick her fingers into the interface’s fronds.

“The things I do for the Doctor. Be gentle,” she muttered to the TARDIS as she plunged her hands into the interface.


	7. Chapter 7

“What took you, Buddy?” the captain of the ferry asked as the tug pulled alongside. This was hardly the first time he’d required Mr. Cumberland’s services.

“Uh, mechanical problems.”

“Who’s the new guy?” the captain inquired as he made note of the silver-haired man who looked distinctly overdressed for tugboat work.

The Doctor stepped forward with his psychic paper at the ready, “John Smith, work experience student.”

The captain cocked his head at that.

“Advanced education. Very advanced education.”

The captain shrugged and turned away and the Doctor faced Buddy. “I’m hoping my friend will be here soon. Do you need my help?”

“No, just let me get on with it. Are you one of those psychic magicians or something? That paper’s just a blank but the captain acted like he’d seen something on it.”

“Something like that,” the Doctor said as he made a mental note that it might be time to replace the psychic paper. It had been failing more often than not these days.

Also failing was his sense of timing as he looked down at his watch. Sixty-five minutes had now passed since the Monk sent him on his way. He gazed across the passengers on the ferry and recognized Bill Haley, sitting quietly with his bandmates. And he knew he’d failed them; there was no way they’d have time to drive from here to New York before Gabler cancelled the recording session. 

***

_Concentrate, Clara. Don’t let your mind wander._

The Doctor’s words from the first time she did this echoed through Clara’s mind as she tried to synch herself with the TARDIS. She dared not think about the Monk who, at that moment, was undoubtedly trying desperately to regain control of the TARDIS. No, her thoughts could only be of the Doctor.

Good thing he’d dominated her thoughts so much these days.

_Come on. Take me to him in 1954. Take me to the Doctor._

***

The Monk knew something was wrong when he heard the click deep within the main console.

It was almost as if a switch had been thrown somewhere. 

_How could she have known about … oh, of course. Clever Doctor._

The Monk had no one to blame but himself on this. Of course the Doctor would have sent his companion to Room 6, otherwise known as the secondary console room, the only place aboard the TARDIS that could override the main console. The Doctor thought it was a secret, but the real secret was that virtually everyone else of any stature on Gallifrey knew about it.

He raced down the corridor and found the door. _And of course it’s a pass key lock_ , he thought. He tried the usual suspects for pass key phrases — apple, mother, petrichor, the TARDIS equivalents of using 1-2-3-4 as a PIN number — but the door wouldn’t budge. He then played through what he’d seen the Doctor do with Clara. He’d seen him kiss her on the cheek, so he played that out in his mind. But pass keys always required more than one level of authentication and, without knowing what the Doctor whispered (he took a stab at “I love you,” just in case the girl hadn’t been lying, but he knew that was doomed to failure from the off), all he could do was pound on the door in frustration.

***

“I know you’re in there! You give me back control of this TARDIS right now!”

Inside Room 6, Clara was virtually oblivious to the pounding on the door as she concentrated on the Doctor. _Take me to him. Take me to him._

The pounding eventually stopped (or perhaps she’d successfully zoned him out). But then the smooth grinding-wheezing sound that meant the TARDIS was in flight began to stutter and staccato. Almost as if she was fighting…

Suddenly, Clara found herself on the floor, her hands gripped with pain and tears streaming from her eyes as she curled instinctively into a protective foetal position. What the hell?

“Two can play that game,” she heard the Monk’s voice say over a tannoy. “I’ve just locked you out again. I hope you didn’t burn your pretty hands too badly. The ship is under my control again. How old are you, dearie? Thirty years, thirty-five? That’s a drop in the bucket compared to my lifespan and what I’ve done. Have you ever played Go? It’s not the number of pieces you have that matters to winning, it’s how much space they encompass. There is no way, even with all your travels with the Doctor, that your mind can match mine.”

Clara sat in silence for a moment, defeated. She wasn’t worried about the Doctor. She agreed with the Monk that, to a Time Lord, sixty-odd years is a drop in the ocean. Maybe he would be waiting for her after all. Hopefully with the same face. Hell, knowing him he probably went off and introduced Alan Freed to punk rock twenty-five years ahead of schedule and cut out the middle men completely. But his TARDIS would still be lost forever. He would be stranded on Earth. Likely a very different Earth than they’d known. In fact would she even be the same Clara? All the soufflés in the world wouldn’t make up for …

_Soufflés._

Clara looked down at her hands, but for a moment she no longer saw the reddened skin of her own appendages. She saw the soft hands of a woman in a red miniskirt, fruitlessly whipping soufflé ingredients in what appeared to be a spaceship galley. A galley with no eggs. Then those same hands were carrying a tray of drinks in a pub and reaching out to the Doctor as she was pulled from behind off a cloud. Then they were pounding on a glass wall as in the distance the Doctor hung from a cliff using an umbrella with a question-mark handle.

_I’m the Impossible Girl and I was born to save the Doctor_.

“Thousands of lifetimes, all locked away in here,” Clara tapped her head, even though there was no one there to see or hear her. “Okay, Monk. Think you have more lifetimes than me to draw on? Get a load of this.”

With a deep breath, Clara plunged her hands into the fronds, burying them up to the wrists.

And then she began to scream.


	8. Chapter 8

With an almighty grinding of metal, Buddy Cumberland’s tugboat finally yanked the ferry free. A few minutes later, the boats had detached and the ferry was free to, at last, complete a crossing that normally took six minutes but had taken the better part of a morning.

“Do you need a lift, Mr. Smith?” Buddy asked.

“No, I’ll stay here. Take care.” The Doctor waved as Buddy returned to the dock.

Still no sign of Clara, he decided to make the best of it by introducing himself to the men whose timelines he had tried to salvage.

“Mr. Haley?” 

“That’s me,” the man with the kiss curl replied.

“My name is John Smith, though most people call me the Doctor,” the Doctor shook hands with Haley. “My, er, wife and I are big fans.” 

“Why, thank you very much. We’re heading to New York City to record for a new label. At least we hope to if there’s still enough time.”

“Really? That’s swell.” (At this point, the Doctor made the life choice that “swell” would thereafter join “Who da man?” and “Why don’t we stop and say hello to Derren Brown?” as words banned from the Doctor’s vocabulary.)

“Do you play guitar? You have the grip,” Haley remarked. Impressed at his astuteness, the Doctor nodded.

“I play from time to time.”

“Let me introduce you to the boys quickly before we get to the other side.”

The Doctor nodded as he was introduced to the Comets. He shook their hands and smiled, but his mind wasn’t totally on the experience.

That’s because the sound of Clara screaming began to tear through his consciousness and he collapsed.

***

“Are you insane, girl? You’re throwing your life away for a man and his motor! I thought you ... _ahh!_ … came from an enlightened age!”

The Monk had his own hands dipped inside the psychic circuits of the main console room. The fronds at his end glowed an angry red, as if he was an infection the TARDIS was trying to expel. The Monk tried to ignore the growing pain in his hands as he fought against the pressure coming from the secondary console room. A couple of times, his mind touched that of Clara’s. He saw visions that he should not have been able to see. Not just the current Doctor, or the one who came before, but … so many other Doctors. 

But not just that. There were also _so many other Claras_.

“What is this?”

Over and over again. The mewling and puking baby, the whining schoolgirl, sometimes a young lover, sometimes a soldier, a mature and just matron, the elderly woman on her deathbed. Often a life would end at one of the earlier points. Sometimes, a life ended naturally. He felt male and female consciousnesses. And nearly always _he appeared_. The Doctor. Sometimes he did not, and he felt the pain of a life perhaps well lived, but never fully fulfilled.

Over and over. And the pain in his hands increased.

***

Clara was still screaming. 

She knew she had to be doing serious damage to her hands as she fought against the Monk. Suddenly, she felt a numbing sensation and the pain subsided enough that she was able to stop screaming. Nerve damage? Or was the TARDIS trying to protect her?

_I’ll never call you a cow again_.

Clara had long since known that, somewhere in her head, locked away, were memories of her echoes. She’d been having dreams about them for years, and even confirmed the presence of a few in the TARDIS’s records. If the dreams became too much, she could always turn to Danny, or the Doctor, though she never told them why. She hadn’t the courage to tell the Doctor that it was one of her echoes that guided him to this very TARDIS back on Gallifrey. And right now she was reliving that moment, firing it at the Monk like a cannon. She felt it strike … something … and felt the Monk “moving” away slightly. Did that mean it was working?

Another echo. Another woman who aided the Doctor, but one he would never have believed was a facet of her. Queen Victoria, if you will. This memory, too, she slung at the Monk, resulting in a roar of anger. _He is not amused_ , she allowed herself before moving on. 

Another. Her name was Annie. She was a chambermaid aboard _Titanic_. So were at least four Doctors. And she met them all. 

Another. Her name was Jasmine. She never met a Doctor. She threw her life away in a moment of anger that left a man dead and herself in prison.

Another. A young woman whose sister fell in love with a paralyzed man. 

Another. A debutante during the Second World War who attended a world’s fair on the arm of a soldier on the eve of his deployment, watching a demonstration of a hovering car that refused to hover.

Another. Winnie Clarence, the brave young woman who helped Clara and the Doctor out at the South Pole. This one she’d actually met, and Clara felt satisfaction as red-tinged anger filled her thoughts in response as she hit the Monk with what was basically a twin shotgun blast as she remembered Winnie’s sacrifice (fortunately not a fatal one) from _both_ her perspective and that of Winnie’s, simultaneously. 

And then Clara Oswin Oswald. The barmaid so cruelly cut down by an agent of the Great Intelligence in Victorian London.

And then Oswin Oswald. Junior Entertainment Director, _Starship Alaska_. Oswin Oswald: the Dalek. The one who wanted so much for “Chin Boy” to show her the stars. The one who, in many ways, made it possible for Clara to meet the Doctor in the first place. _Run, you clever boy … and remember…_

All these volleys she fired at the Monk.

But she soon realized to her horror that they weren’t enough.

***

“Are you okay?” Bill Haley asked the Doctor as he put his coat under the silver-haired man’s head. “Is there a doctor on board?” he called out, but the other passengers were already headed back to their vehicles, giving no sign they even noticed the man’s collapse.

“Undo his shirt, give him air,” suggested Dick Richards.

The Doctor’s eyes were rolled back into their sockets. “Clara…” he muttered.

“Who’s Clara?” asked Marshall. “Wife? Kid?”

Haley turned to Billy Williamson. “Billy, help me get him off the floor and onto that bench.” The ferry had nearly docked and they knew they needed to keep the deck clear.

“Clara …”

***

_CLARA!_

The sudden burst of a familiar Scottish-accented voice startled Clara so badly, she nearly yanked her hands out of the fronds in a reflex motion. 

“Doctor? Where are you?” she asked aloud, her eyes tightly shut.

_I’m on the ferry with Haley. And I think I’ve fallen down now. Yes … yes, I have indeed fallen. Strange sensation. Embarrassing. Are you in Room 6?_

“Yes. And right now I have my hands stuck inside the TARDIS’ brain-thing trying to stop the Monk from taking her away and it hurts like hell. How come I’m talking to you … thinking to you?”

_Must be the TARDIS doing it. We are psychically linked and she’s trying to help us as best she can, good ol’ girl. How are you fighting the …no, on second thought, give me a tick…_

The Doctor’s consciousness gave a mighty heave as he latched onto Clara’s mind. This wasn’t the first time they’d joined, and she felt the comfort of his consciousness enveloping hers, a sensation not too dissimilar to a hug. The last time she’d been paranoid about him detecting certain … thoughts. About him and about other people, but he’d reassured her that he’d never snoop around without her permission. She knew he’d exercise the same sort of discretion now. His mind joined hers and he immediately realized what she was up to.

_Your echoes! Brilliant plan, Clara! You’re definitely getting a raise and that lunch with George Sand I promised y- … wait a minute … Queen Victoria? You’ve got to be joking. And that handsome guy in the kilt standing behind Jamie on the_ Annabelle _was one of you too? You look distinguished with a beard. And don’t tell me_ she _was one of you, too? I travelled with her for years and you don’t even look alike…_

“Doctor,” Clara groaned. The anesthetic was starting to wear off on her hands. “You’re not really helping!”

_Sorry. Have to focus. We have a problem, Clara. Even with your echoes you don’t have quite enough mental_ oomph _to knock the Monk down._

“So how do we win?”

_We try something else._

***

“We’ll have to take him to the hospital,” said Johnny Grande.

“So much or the recording session,” countered Joey Ambrose.

Haley shrugged. “There’s no way we can make it anyway. Maybe Lord Jim can smooth-talk Gabler into giving us a second chance. I mean, it’s not our fault, right?” Lord Jim Ferguson was the Comets’ manager and Haley was not looking forward to facing him or James Myers and telling them what had happened.

Or even worse: telling Cuppy, his wife.

Suddenly, the Doctor’s back arched, nearly throwing him off the bench, and his voice sounded out: “TARDIS! Now! _Do as you are told!_ ”

***

“You’re an idiot.”

_I know._

The pain of being screamed at by the Doctor on the last planet in the universe still stung, all this time later. Yes, they made up very soon after. It was an emotional bark, far worse than any bite. But in that moment, it felt to Clara like a slap in the face.

And that pain was fired at the Monk’s consciousness. And it found its mark.

_Yes! That’s it, Clara. Intense emotions. Shared anger. Hatred. Sorrow. Let it all go._

“Doctor, I don’t think I can do this. I don’t want to.”

_You have to, Clara. It’s the only way. I felt awful for yelling at you. It’s a regret I carry with me._

“But not the only one.”

_No._

Courtney Woods had been ushered back to her normal life at Coal Hill School, after becoming (one of) the first women to visit the moon. But Clara had been angry, incensed that the Doctor had forced her to make a decision that could have cost the life of an alien life form, or ruined the world. At the same time, she had been torn with her relationship with Danny, especially now that he knew about the Doctor. He sounded less and less convinced each time he asked her if she loved the Doctor and she’d said no. The moon-egg had been the breaking point. She couldn’t take it anymore.

“You can clear off! Get back in your lonely bloody TARDIS and you don’t come back!”

_Clara … Clara ...._

“You go a long way away!” The TARDIS door slammed behind her.

_I thought I’d lost you that day. It was the first time in this body that I cried. I don’t think I ever told you that._

The memory was projected at the Monk and hit him so hard, he let go of the fronds at his end. This gave the Doctor and Clara a brief respite until the Monk resynched once he’d recovered.

_Won’t be long. A few more. It will be okay, Clara. It will be okay._

The Doctor couldn’t see the tears flowing down Clara’s cheeks. Mind you, Clara couldn’t see the same happening to the Doctor back on the ferry, so they were even.

“I’m sorry I blew up at you. I’m glad we didn’t part on a slammed door like that,” Clara said. “The _Orient Express_ was wonderful and, Doctor, when I told Danny that I loved him, I really-”

Clara felt a mental jerk from the Doctor, interrupting what was becoming an impulsive, spur-of-the-moment confession.

_Ouch! Dammit!_

“What’s wrong?”

_Ouch! Oh, for God’s sake! Someone’s slapping my face back on the ferry._

***

“Are you sure that’s a good idea?” asked Johnny Grande.

“I don’t know,” said Haley. “The guy was crying so he can’t be too far out cold. I thought maybe I could bring him around.” He got ready to slap the Doctor’s cheek one more time when one eye opened.

“Please, don’t,” the Doctor said in a dazed-sounding voice.

“Sorry, pal. Just trying to help.”

“Well, you aren’t. Just sit tight. I’ll be back to you as soon as I’ve helped my best friend defeat an evil Time Lord and saved the day for you evolved apes once again.”

The closing of the Doctor’s one eye coincided with the _thunk_ of the ferry finally reaching the opposite dock. Joey and Dick looked at each other as Dick rotated his index finger around his right ear and whistled.

***

_Okay, I’m back. Did you miss me, Clara?_

“Always,” Clara said through gritted teeth. The pain on her hands had subsided to a dull ache. She didn’t know if that was a good sign or if it meant she’d just have a pair of stumps when this was over with. “What now?”

_The Monk is recovering quickly. We need one more. Just one more and he’ll be down for the count._ The Doctor’s voice took an uncertain tone as he realized one arrow Clara had left in her mental quiver.

“Danny,” she said.

_Absolutely not! I will not allow you to relive that again. I know what it did to you. There has to be something else._

“But Doctor-”

_That is not up for negotiation, Clara. Think of something else, quickly, something we both experienced. And it has to be a doozy._

Clara’s mind flashed through every adventure they’d had together, every intense moment, every sad moment. But dammit, so many times they had actually _won_. They fixed things. They nearly always fixed things. What else could she offer but Danny, who she’d loved just as she’d loved the Doctor, just not as much and one of the last times she spoke to him, she’d told Danny how much the Doctor meant to her. Stupid Clara.

_Clara, what are you doing? I told you no Danny Pink! Something else, quickly._

“I’ve got noth-” Clara began. And then she remembered a dream. “I know one. But you won’t like it.”

_What won’t I -_

The Doctor’s mental view shifted to a graveyard on the outskirts of New York City in the late 2010s. Crouched over a gravestone, he saw himself, but his earlier self, the awkward one that wore bow ties. Next to him, his wife, River. And sobbing over the gravestone, a jumble of legs and red hair, Amy.

_Oh no, Clara,_ the Doctor thought.

_I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,_ Clara replied.

“We can just go and get him in the TARDIS,” Amy begged the younger Doctor. The gravestone belonged to Rory, her husband, who’d just been transported back in time by a Weeping Angel. In fact, the very Weeping Angel being kept at bay at that moment by the Doctor and River’s gaze. 

The younger Doctor told Amy that it was impossible. The paradox created by going back to retrieve Rory in the TARDIS would be insurmountable, he said.

So Amy, clever Amy, chose another option.

“I’ll be with him, like I should be. Me and Rory, Together.”

The Doctor tried to talk her out of it. “Just come back to the TARDIS. Come along, Pond, please!”

“Raggedy man — _goodbye_!” A turn, the Weeping Angel touched Amy, a flash, and she was gone. Forever.

The fresh pain seared through the eleventh Doctor, and through him to the twelfth. Clara could hear both Doctors crying out in anguish (“I lied again,” she thought she heard one of them say, or perhaps both). And then she took that pain and aimed it squarely at the Monk as the other Time Lord’s reentered the link.

“I hope you choke on this,” she growled as she let it fly.

***

The Monk saw it coming. He knew he couldn’t stop it. The best he could do is lessen the damage. He withdrew his hands and began a meditation chant he had learned at the Academy.

Even with a physical connection no longer in place, it still hit his synapses like a ton of bricks, and, as he hit the floor, his last thought before unconsciousness was that he and the Doctor were indeed more alike than they let on. 

A few moments later, Clara entered the main console room, her hands blistered and painful to move. Her mental link to the Doctor was being maintained by the TARDIS, briefly. She checked the Monk’s still form, dreading to find him dead or in the middle of regeneration. 

“I think he’s unconscious.”

_His brain has entered siege mode. Sort of like when I threw that emergency switch in the TARDIS back in Bristol. He’ll be fine and out cold long enough._

“Long enough for what?”

_Have you forgotten why we’re here?_

“It has to be too late by now.”

_Just finish what you started earlier, Clara. Use the psychic link to get to me. I’m sorry about your hands — I’ll fix them up when we’re together again, but there should be no more fresh pain now. Have to run; we’re on the east shore of the river and I need to wake up before our erstwhile future rock stars go skulking back home._

***

The Doctor bolted upright so quickly, Billy Williamson dropped his cigarette in his lap and swore loudly as he batted at it to avoid burning a hole in his pants.

“Good day, gentlemen,” the Doctor said. “Sorry for the nod off. Jet lag. Did I hear we’ve docked?”

“Yeah, though we may as well just stay on board and head back in the other direction,” Haley said.

“You, Mr. Haley, have a date with destiny. You can’t meet it by running away.”

“That’s all very nice, friend, but we’re a good ninety-minute drive from the recording studio. There won’t be enough time left to do anything.”

“Leave that to me,” the Doctor said as he scanned the shoreline. His gaze fixed on a point just up the road from the dock and his face broke into a massive grin. 

Marshall gave a whistle as he spied the petite dark-haired woman leaning against what looked like a big blue box, her shoulder-length hair catching the breeze.

“Amazing, isn’t she?” the Doctor said.

“Yeah, what a looker,” Joey said. 

The Doctor sighed. “That she is. And Clara’s a sight for sore eyes, too. Just don’t tell her I said so.”


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Edited to correct a coding error that made half the chapter appear as italics for some readers.

As it turned out, getting stuck on a ferry and being late for a life-altering recording session wasn’t the strangest thing to happen to Bill Haley and His Comets on April 12, 1954.

Seeing a silver-haired man share a hug with a young woman that definitely didn’t scream father-daughter had been awkward enough. But then the man had reached inside the blue box and flipped a switch and suddenly it seemed to grow a garage.

They’d driven inside and parked their vehicle next to a vintage yellow roadster and another car that looked like a flying saucer. They hadn’t had time to figure out how there was room for all of them when the Doctor and Clara had ushered the group into the main console room and the first thing Haley had said was, “I need a drink.”

Added Johnny: “I feel like I’ve walked into an episode of _Tom Corbett_. What’s going on?”

The Doctor turned to Clara and prompted, “Your turn.”

Clara scowled. “Okay, fellows. Spaceship. Yes, it’s bigger on the inside, just accept it. He’s an alien. I’m from Blackpool. No, he’s not my dad. We’re from the future — well, I am, anyway; he’s more from all over. We’re going to make sure you record ‘Rock Around the Clock’ on time because the Doctor — he’s the Doctor, by the way, I’m Clara, hi — the Doctor wants his guitar back and my gran wants to see you when you visit London in three years and get mobbed by thousands of people and I’ve probably given you too much information. Sorry.”

Haley’s reaction was to just blink and say to Clara. “My mother’s from Ulverston.”

“Er, nice town,” Clara replied. Ulverston was just across the bay from Blackpool. She used to have a boyfriend from there. “No other questions?”

Haley shrugged. “When do we wake up?”

“Someone beat us to it. Who’s sleeping beauty?” Billy Williamson asked as he became the first of the visitors to notice the slumbering form on the deck.

Clara replied: “Oh, that’s … Morty. He’s a friend of ours. I guess he had a little too much to drink. Doctor, did you leave the liquor cabinet unlocked again?” She put her hands on her hips and looked at him with feigned annoyance.

“Sorry, dear,” the Doctor mumbled. “Mr. … Williamson, was it? Could you help me move, uh, Morty to a chair? We’ll let him sleep it off and he hates being stepped on.”

The Doctor and Billy each took a shoulder, shared the rest of the body in-between, and carried Morty up the stairs where they placed him in the Doctor’s easy chair.

Clara observed this and this time her annoyance wasn’t fake.

“Do you mean that Mon…er…Morty’s going to get the relaxing, microbe-aided sleep I never got?” she said to the Doctor. “He better not start dreaming about … never mind.”

“Would you prefer I put him in your bed?” the Doctor shot back.

“What’s wrong with yours?”

“Now Clara, you know I don’t need as much sleep as you do.”

“What do you mean by that remark?”

“So, how long have you two been married?” Joey cut in.

Clara and the Doctor looked at the young sax player with comically identical expressions. And then they started laughing. 

“I should get you something for your hands,” the Doctor said to her quietly.

***

“Uh, Doctor, aren’t we breaking the First or Second Law of Not Messing About with Time by bringing the Comets on board?” Clara asked as the Doctor applied dressing to her hands. She gave a slight groan of relief as the lotion set into her cracked palms. The Doctor gave her a quick glance to make sure that wasn’t pain. She smiled in reassurance. “I don’t remember Dick Clark mentioning anything about alien abduction being part of the early history of rock and roll.”

“I have that covered,” the Doctor said as he finished treating Clara’s hands. “You’ll be right as rain in about six hours. But no bowling or yodelling for a week.”

“You know, Doctor, you should really cut a deal with Tescos. Between this and the smoke pill and that incredible soft drink you invented a few weeks ago that gave a different flavour with every sip, you’d be set for lives,” Clara smiled. “No more running from Daleks. Just reel in the dough and live the high life.”

The Doctor lent in and whispered, “Clara, don’t you know? I already live the high life…” Clara wondered if the unspoken “with you” she felt instinctively was real or just more wishful thinking.

“Excuse me, Doctor,” Haley said. “It’s right kindly for you and Miss Oswald to offer us a lift to New York. But shouldn’t we be actually _going_ to New York? My producer is going to kill us as it is.”

“Quite right, quite right. You might want to find something to hold onto,” said the Doctor.

“I thought you had a car or a helicopter, or something — that bit about this being a spaceship and you being an alien was just malarkey, right?” Haley said.

“Take me to your leader!” With that, the Doctor pulled the lever and, with its customary groaning noise (which, for some reason, made Marshall utter, “Reminds me of ‘Straight Jacket,’” earning nods of agreement from several of his friends and a scowl from Haley), the TARDIS’ central console rotated and gleamed and put on a general light show as the ship took a very short hop through the vortex.

“Have to be careful, Clara,” the Doctor muttered. “Can’t arrive too early, certainly not before you phone the studio.”

“Before I phone the what now?”

“Put it on your to-do list for later. We’ve … arrived.” The last word was punctuated by the bass drum-esque _thunk_ that meant the TARDIS had re-entered normal space.

Half-expecting them to have arrived in sixteenth-century Japan by mistake (wouldn’t be the first time), Clara checked the scanner and confirmed they were indeed parked just behind the Pythian Temple. The Comets’ vehicle was already off-loaded and parked in the alley.

It took some convincing (basically, opening the door) before the Comets were ready to accept that they’d actually travelled.

“Hang on a second, gentlemen,” the Doctor said before the band began to file out. “Clara, could you please step outside for a moment. We will be right with you.”

“I don’t understand.”

“You will in a moment.”

Shrugging, Clara stepped into the alleyway. The morning breeze felt cool on her face as she chuckled at the absurdity of her life. By her reckoning, it had only been about eighteen hours since she and the Doctor were enjoying martinis on Mars thousands of years into the future, and now she was in the 1950s, hopefully helping to make sure a watershed cultural moment took place after spending an hour locked in a battle of wills with an insane Time Lord who liked to dress as a monk. She wished UNIT hadn’t officially prohibited her from ever publishing a memoir (something about the “Barbara Wright Incident” — a former companion whose published memoirs written under a pseudonym had ended up being adapted into a couple of movies starring the guy who used to play Victor Frankenstein in the Hammer films). But then, would anyone actually believe her stories?

Clara heard the shuffling of feet behind her and saw Bill Haley and His Comets exit the TARDIS, almost as in a daze. They moved slowly towards where their vehicle was parked, the Doctor gently guiding them.

“Doctor, what did you do to them?”

“They’re in a state of hypnotic grace. Didn’t want to run the risk of you getting some collateral damage. I’ve implanted false memories into them. As far as they’re concerned we’re with the American Federation of Musicians and I just happened to be going their way. They know I’ve called ahead — let’s not discuss how, as mobiles won’t be invented for decades — and we’ve now all arrived safe and sound, with the band ready to record some rock and roll. When I remove the state of grace, you’ll need to be ready to reintroduce yourself.”

Clara nodded. “What about the Monk?”

“I tied him up securely, but it usually takes about a day before a Time Lord comes out of siege mode. He’s not going anywhere.” The Doctor stood in front of the slightly swaying men, like a conductor about to lead a choir. “Ready?”

He made a wide flourish with his arms and the men were now wide awake, as if nothing had happened.

The Doctor (re)introduced the Comets to his “wife,” Clara Smith, explaining her bandaged hands as a “workplace accident.”

“Okay, boys, let’s unload our gear,” Haley said after the pleasantries. “I’m going to go check in with Milt and hope he doesn’t throw a piano at me.”

“We’ll come with you,” said Clara.

***

“Well it’s about damn time,” Gabler said, nearly chewing through the end of his cigar.

“Sorry, Mr. Gabler. We were stuck in the middle of the Delaware. Nothing we could do,” said Haley. “How much time do we have left in the session?”

“About three hours. And you’re going to have to spend a good chunk of that getting ‘Thirteen Women’ into shape,” said Gabler.

“Are you sure you don’t want us to get ‘Rock Around the Clock’ out of the way first? We spent all of last night rehearsing it. Hell, we even worked out a few new things while we were waiting on the ferry.”

“Which means you’ll be able to knock it off in a couple of takes. ‘Thirteen Women’ is the hit. Trust me. Everyone told me ‘Strange Fruit’ would never work for Billie Holiday and ‘Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy’ would be a dud for the Andrews Sisters, and I proved them wrong. You’ll get to do your ‘Clock’ thing, but I want you to focus on ‘Thirteen Women,’ and that’s final. Now get your gear and your asses into the studio. Gussak and Cedrone are already waiting.”

Through all of this, Clara watched quietly. It hit her that she was watching history unfold. As the rest of the Comets filed in carrying cases with their instruments, the Doctor sidled up to her.

“Time to go,” he said softly.

Clara’s jaw dropped. “You’ve got to be kidding! We’re about to witness musical history. I want to see everything. This is one of the reasons why I love travelling with you — I get to see things like this.”

“You didn’t sit around to watch Jane Austen writing her novels,” the Doctor chided.

“That’s because it’s boring to watch people write. But I did have her read her first draft of the first chapter of _Emma_ to me, and it was amazing.”

“Suit yourself. But we just observe. Just like real Time Lords are supposed to do.”

“Are you calling me a Time Lord?”

“I wouldn’t dare insult you.”

“Oh no, Mr. Spaceman, you used Time Lords, plural. So does that mean I can start introducing you to people as my companion?”

“Shut it.”

“Oh, I am going to have so much fun with that…”

***

The studio almost resembled a theatre more than that type of recording studio Clara was used to seeing on TV. The Comets, plus session musicians Danny Cedrone and Billy Gussak, were arranged on a stage behind Haley, who stood on the floor by a large microphone. Gabler and an engineer sat at a console in a room off to the side. Gabler had initially been hesitant to let them attend, but after the Doctor played the union card, he and Clara was allowed to stay and observe alongside Dick Richards.

What they observed had similarities to a train wreck. “Thirteen Women” was an offbeat blues song about a man having a dream of being served by a group of females after the H-bomb goes off and ends the world. Haley didn’t feel comfortable singing it, and it took time for the band to fall into a groove where they could play it through without losing the beat. Danny Cedrone tried several different guitar solos, Joey Ambrose tried to figure out a sax part that worked for him, and Haley became more frustrated as the afternoon wore on.

“ _Last night I was dreamin’. I dreamed about the H-bomb…_ ” Haley sang for take after take, with Billy Williamson adding eerie-sounding steel guitar flashes for effect. 

“Try to think of this song as a sexy sci-fi movie,” Gabler said. “You’ve got the perfect life — no wife, no kids, just you and a bunch of gals. What more do you want?”

“Enlightenment,” Clara mumbled and the Doctor stifled a laugh. She was impressed to see Dick give her a friendly wink and a thumbs up at her reaction, too.

It seemed like forever, but eventually, after two hours and six takes, the band finally delivered a version of “Thirteen Women” that passed muster with Gabler. 

“Okay, fellows, now go do that ‘Clock’ thing of yours,” he called out.

There was only about forty minutes left on the session, and Clara and the Doctor watched as the Comets quickly conferred with each other. The two followed Dick out of the control room and listened in as he quickly chatted with the session drummer.

“Don’t let Bill start cold. Give him a two-beat rimshot first,” Dick said to Gussak.

Meanwhile, Cedrone was conferring with Williamson, Grande and Marshall Lytle. “I wish I could have made it to the rehearsal last night,” Cedrone said. “This is a straight blues riff, so I can vamp a solo pretty easily.”

“Remember that solo you did for us on ‘Rock the Joint’ a couple years ago?” Marshall asked.

“Yeah. I wasn’t overly happy with it; I’m usually smoother on the run.”

“Why don’t you do it again for this one?” Marshall suggested.

Johnny Grande, keeper of the arrangements, chimed in: “Works for me. It’ll give you a chance to improve on it. I know it’s your party-trick solo with the Esquires, but I think it would work well.” Grande quickly called over to Haley for confirmation and the leader nodded back.

Haley turned to the Doctor. “Half an hour left. We’ll be lucky to get two takes,” he said. “Sonny Dae got six shots at doing his version.” 

There was only enough time for a couple of rehearsals. On the first run-through, Cedrone messed up the solo. On the second, Haley stumbled on the words — “Whose idea was it to change the lyrics, anyway?” he asked. “Yours,” replied Joey. “Somebody fire me,” Haley shot back.

There was only about fifteen minutes left on the session. They had to get the damn thing recorded, and they had to record it now.

In the console room, Gabler pressed a button that allowed him to record his voice onto the master tape. “Rock Around the Clock, Take 1.”

Johnny Grande could be heard counting down for Gussak’s benefit: “One … two…”

And then Dick’s suggested two-beat rimshot and Haley’s voice rang out: “ _One, two, three o’clock, four o’clock rock!_ ”

Perhaps it was the pressure of having the tape rolling, but the Comets and the two session musicians merged into a true unit as they fired through “Rock Around the Clock.” Haley’s voice was propelled along by Marshall’s bass slapping, Johnny’s piano, Billy’s staccato steel guitar riff, Joey’s on-beat sax honking, Gussak’s beat shots and Danny’s incredible guitar solo was all the more incredible given the rather awkward-looking Gibson ES-300 he was using. Clara glanced at the Doctor and saw him nodding with approval as he watched Danny at work.

The first sign of something going wrong was when the engineer turned to Gabler just before the second instrumental break and said, “We have a problem.”

“I hear it. Let them finish. Call this another rehearsal.”

The second instrumental break saw all the musicians come together in unison — repeated single notes, nothing complex, but it built the song to a climax that had Clara tingling. Even Haley joined in on his acoustic guitar that wasn’t even placed near a microphone (he said he only needed it to keep his rhythm and key on course). 

“ _When the clock strikes twelve we’ll cool off then, start rockin’ around the clock again…_ ”

(“He’s playing your song,” Clara whispered to the Doctor.)

Finally, just over two minutes after it began, it was nearly over. The band went into the famous ending which included a one-second pause before the final beats and rimshot — and Gussak jumped the gun, hitting the beat just out of synch with the others.

“Sorry, guys!” the drummer said.

Gabler walked into the studio. “It doesn’t matter anyway, we had a problem with the sound. You guys are too damn loud, we couldn’t hear Haley properly and there was distortion. So you need to do it one more time. We have about ten minutes. You pretty much nailed it the first go-around so as long as no one else screws up we should be able to get this thing done.”

Gabler returned to the studio. “Don’t you start,” he glowered at Dick Richards.

“What, I didn’t say anything. Billy’s doing fine. I might not have screwed up the ending, but, hey.”

Gabler pressed a button. “Rock Around the Clock, Take 2.”

Two-beat rimshot. “ _One, two, three o’clock, four o’clock rock!_ ” And Clara knew this was _the one_.

For Clara, the next two minutes were eerie because everything she heard was familiar. For years she’d heard the record on TV, the radio, her gran’s music collection. And, while Take 1 had been brilliant, it hadn’t felt the same because it wasn’t the same.

But now, Haley hit every beat perfectly. Danny’s guitar solo managed to sound even faster and smoother than it had a few minutes earlier. Billy Gussak kept his drumsticks from misbehaving. Billy Williamson had a broad grin on his face throughout, as did Marshall Lytle. Johnny Grande and Joey Ambrose looked more serious as they made sure they _got it right_.

Then, finally, the song ended on a perfectly timed rimshot and drum flourish. Clara punched the air and had to stop herself from whooping. Even the Doctor had a grin on his face. He reached down and took her hand and gave it a squeeze.

“That’s got it,” Gabler said. “And just in time, too.”

“How was that, Mr. Gabler?” Haley asked as the control room emptied into the studio.

“That’ll be a strong B-side. And I think you guys did great on ‘Thirteen Women.’ We’ll have the single out in May, and then we’ll see how it does. If it works out, I’ve got my eye on you doing a cover of Big Joe Turner’s new single.”

Clara sipped a coffee as she watched the musicians pack up their instruments and Gabler huddled with his engineer. In one corner of the studio, she saw the Doctor speaking intently with Danny Cedrone, undoubtedly talking shop, and she couldn’t help but feel sad knowing the strapping musician who’d just created history would die only a few months later, long before “Rock Around the Clock” became a hit. The Doctor and Danny shook hands. With a nod to Clara, Danny took his leave.

“Looks like your husband’s quite the rock and roll fan, Mrs. Smith,” said Marshall as he zipped his double bass into its protective cover.

“That he is. So am I.”

“You two don’t really seem the type. It’s mostly kids at our shows.”

“Oh, I think you’ll find your music appeals to a lot of people,” Clara smiled.

“What’s your first name again?” Marshall asked.

“Clara.”

“Hmmm… _Clara_ … Clarabella. Not a bad name for a song,” Marshall said. “My friend Frank Pingatore is looking for ideas. Who knows, maybe that’ll be our next hit record — ‘Clarabella’!”

Flattered, Clara nodded and smiled. “I’m sure it will be!” 

The Doctor and Clara made the rounds, saying farewell to the remaining Comets (Williamson offering to buy them drinks next time they were in the neighbourhood) before they were left lone with Bill Haley. 

“I’m still not too sure about ‘Thirteen Women.’ I think Milt has it wrong. ‘Rock Around the Clock’ is the type of stuff that’s getting the kids jumping these days,” Haley said.

The Doctor shook his hand. “You’re a good man, Mr. Haley, and you have an incredible band backing you. I’m pretty confident your song is the one people are going to want to hear. It just might not happen right away.”

“I hope so. Anyway, thanks for your help. This has been a heck of a day; do you know I can’t actually remember us getting from the ferry to the studio? I must have dozed off or something.”

“Something,” the Doctor said. “So what’s next for Bill Haley and His Comets?”

“Well, if ‘Thirteen Women’ does okay, Milt wants us to tackle that new Joe Turner track, ‘Shake, Rattle and Roll.’ I also have a few other tunes I want to get done. One’s based on something Robbie Burns wrote. You know Robbie Burns, right?”

“Not personally,” the Doctor lied.

“I’m working on something called ‘Rockin’ Thru the Rye’ that should turn a bit of profit if Milt lets us record it. But let’s see if anyone gives a damn for ‘Rock Around the Clock.’”

“Good luck, Mr. Haley,” said the Doctor.

“Mrs. Smith, pleasure to meet you,” Haley took Clara’s hand and she smiled.

“See you later …” she said with a smile.

Haley laughed, put his hat on and headed for the door.

“…alligator,” Clara finished.

Haley turned, “Beg pardon, ma’am?”

The Doctor rapidly whispered through gritted teeth: “Year too early. Year too early.”

“Oh, nothing!” Clara said quickly. “All the best Mr. Haley. I’m pretty sure you’re going to knock them dead!”

Bill Haley smiled and followed the rest of his musicians out of the studio.

***

The doors to the TARDIS swung inward and the Doctor and Clara walked in, arm in arm. As their eyes adjusted, the Doctor let out a whoop of delight, let go of Clara and all but ran to the opposite side of the console room where his guitar sat with pride of place against the Magpie Electricals speaker.

“We did it!” Clara exclaimed.

“Yes, it would appear that we did,” the Doctor murmured as he cradled the guitar and ran his fingers along its frets.

“Do you two want to be alone?”

The Doctor smiled and reluctantly put the guitar down. “Later,” he said, apparently to the guitar. Then he went to the console and called up the phone directory again. He typed in a few numbers and motioned to Clara to pick up the old-school handset that was wired into the console. She complied.

“You have one more job to do, Clara,” he said. 

“What? What job? Oh, right, I … Oh, hello, is Mr. Gabler still there? May I speak to him?” She paced as Milt Gabler answered the phone several hours earlier. “This is Clara Smith. I wanted to let you now John and I located Mr. Haley. They had ferry trouble and were forced to help a monk… no, sir, not a monkey, a monk.” She rolled her eyes and the Doctor bit his knuckle to stop from laughing aloud. “I would be very grateful if you could just be patient for a little while longer … you’re very kind. Bye!”

“And that should be that,” the Doctor said.

She hung up and then the Doctor said: “So, Mrs. Clara Smith, I assume you’re anxious to head back to the era of wi-fi, frappuccinos, selfie sticks and non-smoking restaurants? I can take the Monk to the Shadow Proclamation on my own; you don’t need to come along if you don’t want to.”

“I rather liked the fifties,” Clara said. “And I would have just loved to have seen the look on Milt Gabler’s face when ‘Thirteen Women’ flopped and ‘Rock Around the Clock’ goes to number one a year from now because of _Blackboard Jungle_. He was so sure it wasn’t worth anything.”

“Just proves even the best and brightest make mistakes, Clara,” the Doctor said.

“I could have lived in the fifties.” Clara eyed the Doctor in a way that made him remember their earlier “farewell.”

“Not with me, surely.”

Clara shrugged. “Why not? You can cook, right? To be Mr. Clara Smith you have to be able to cook.”

The Doctor smiled thinly and pulled the lever that launched the TARDIS into the vortex.

Clara removed the bandages from her hands. They were a little pinker than usual, but otherwise good as new. She looked up at where the Monk was still slumbering, and suddenly felt goosebumps on her neck. “Doctor. What the Monk said about watching us. Here in the TARDIS. Even at that diner place we obviously haven’t visited yet. How do we know someone isn’t watching us now?”

“The time-space visualizer was never meant to be abused in that way,” the Doctor said as he took a small mobile phone-like device out of his pocket that he’d confiscated from the Monk. He dropped it on the deck and stomped on it, smashing it to pieces. “I have one, too. I’ll let you have at it with a sledgehammer.”

“How do we know there aren’t others out there, spying on us right now? Everything we do?”

“I can’t do much about outside, but at least in here…” He entered a series of commands into the console. The TARDIS’ interior lights dimmed for a few seconds before regaining their brightness. “There. I’ve had her ‘opt out.’ Visualizers will no longer be able to see inside this TARDIS or track it.”

“And you just thought of doing that now.”

“Time-space visualizers are strictly Time Lord tech and in theory are only available in TARDISes. Until Missy came along, I had no reason to expect any such tech to have survived except for my own and there was no indication that Missy had a TARDIS. I used to have the block activated by default back in the old days. I got careless. Sorry.” The possibility of Missy having used one crossed his mind, but he dismissed it. “I doubt the Monk would have seen anything untoward,” he continued.

“Just stuff like this, probably,” and with that, Clara gave him a hug. “Nothing to be ashamed of, right?”

“Nothing at all.” But the Doctor’s expression darkened.

“What’s wrong?” she asked, releasing the hug.

“Clara, at the end of our battle with the Monk, you took me to one of the darkest moments of my life. Amy and Rory weren’t just my friends, my companions — they and River were literally the only real family I’d known for centuries. I remember you telling me how sad you were losing your mum. Imagine if you’d lost your dad at the same time. That was how I felt. It was enough to make me stop travelling, park my TARDIS on a cloud in Victorian London and try to forget everything. Until you came into my life by way of the scenic route.”

“That’s why I chose that moment,” Clara said, softly. “It was such a sad moment, it actually made you give up on all of this.” She squeezed his hand.

“But how were you able to see what happened to Amy?”

“I’ve told you that I occasionally dream about my echoes, almost as if their memories bleed into mine,” Clara began. “I dreamt when you lost Amy, but it felt like I was there, too. And, well, I did some research … I need to show you something.”

Clara gently moved the Doctor aside and entered several commands into the console. In a few moments, the graveyard appeared on screen, as originally viewed from the TARDIS monitor. The younger Doctor, River, Amy, crouched by Rory’s tombstone, watched by a Weeping Angel.

“I don’t really want to see this again,” the Doctor said. He knew the footage existed but had never had the courage to relive the moment that way.

“You don’t need to. I want you to see this.” She reached to the corner of the screen and pinch-zoomed the image. A young blonde woman with large expressive eyes and dark eyebrows was watching from about twenty yards away, unnoticed by everyone.

“It’s you … one of you,” the Doctor said.

“I don’t know why I was there or who I was. I might have been a student, judging by my clothes and I think that’s a book bag.”

“So you saw me.”

“I did more than that.” Clara pressed a key and another angle came up on the screen, showing another side of the TARDIS. A second Weeping Angel stood frozen in place. “You and River had your backs to this one the whole time. But I was watching. I kept you safe until the TARDIS dematerialized.”

Now the Doctor caught a shadow crossing Clara’s face. “And then?” He didn’t want to hear the rest but he knew Clara had to tell him.

“I don’t remember much after that. Except that I must have blinked.”

She didn’t need to say any more. The Doctor wrapped an arm around Clara's shoulders and squeezed.

“I’m never going to be rid of them, am I? The dreams?” Clara sniffed.

“Probably not. But remember, many of your echoes survived. You just fixate on the ones that didn’t make it, because that’s the caring type of person you are.”

“I know. Someday, though, I want to find them. Or as many of them as I can.”

“Someday,” the Doctor said. “Anyway, even though my guitar is back, we should make sure everything is the way it was. When did ‘Rock Around the Clock’ hit number one on the charts, do you recall?”

“Around the first week of July in 1955,” Clara said.

The Doctor entered the commands and the TARDIS arrived in the summer of 1955.

“Clara, fetch me the radio,” he said.

With a smirk, Clara walked over to the Magpie speaker, grabbed a small brass-looking object sitting on it and plopped a clockwork squirrel into the Doctor’s hand.

“Oh, yeah, I forgot,” the Doctor said.

“Come on, follow me, we’ll find a radio,” Clara said.

***

The two left the TARDIS, which had parked itself just off a Norman Rockwellesque main street. They had no idea exactly which town, but it hardly mattered. They came upon a garage where an elderly mechanic was fiddling with a radio and swearing before switching it off.

“Same darned song! Every station! Same darned song!”

“Excuse me,” Clara said. “May we borrow your radio for a moment?”

“Young lady, you can keep it. If all it’s going to play is the same darned song!” The mechanic left the two alone. The Doctor raised an eyebrow in the man’s general direction.

Shrugging, Clara switched on the radio — right in the middle of “Rock Around the Clock.”

She turned the dial. The next station was playing it, too.

The next station, a deejay announced: “And that was the number one song in the land, ‘Rock Around the Clock’ by Bill Haley’s Comets.”

The next station had the song again.

“I think it’s popular,” the Doctor understated.

Clara smiled. Mission accomplished. Although it wasn’t the first rock and roll song and not even the first to be a hit, that little tune would push rock and roll into the mainstream. And less than six months from now, Elvis would emerge.

After switching off the radio out of respect for the annoyed elderly mechanic, Clara linked her arm in the Doctor’s and they started to head back to the TARDIS.

“No, hang on a second,” she said.

“What now?”

“This is 1955, the heart of the malt shop era.”

“Yeah, so?”

“Some date this would be if you didn’t buy me a milkshake. A genuine, 1950s milkshake. In the 1950s. And you need one as much as I do.”

“I could take you to Korova Moo. Martha loved the milkshakes they made there.”

“Is Korova Moo a neon and white-linoleum joint with a jukebox? In 1955?”

“No…”

“Then we go there!” She pointed at Al’s Diner across the street.

Half-expecting the Fonz to suddenly show up, they went to the counter and ordered two strawberry deluxes. “We offer a seniors’ discount for your dad,” the waitress said, not unkindly, but it was enough to make Clara frown.

“Don’t worry, Clara,” the Doctor said; he knew that face. “I get used to hearing it all the time. At least now I look the part. It was hard to get into concerts for free back when I looked sixteen, but claimed to be a thousand.”

Clara buried her hand into the Doctor’s pocket and extracted a dime. Then she hopped off her stool and made a beeline for the jukebox, a classic neon-encrusted Wurlitzer. She ran her hands over it. _One day, I want one of these,_ she thought.

Scanning the title cards, she found what she was looking for. Of course it would be there. It was everywhere, wasn’t it?

She put in the dime and raced back to the Doctor’s side as the jukebox sought out the 45. She put out her hand.

“May I have this dance?”

“Clara, I don’t really…”

_One, two, three o’clock, four o’clock rock!_

“If you can tango, you can lindy hop. Come on! Everyone’s watching. Let’s show these young kids how a thirty-somethingish schoolteacher and a two thousand-year-old man roll!”

“If you put it that way,” the Doctor said as he took her by the hand and swung her around. “Crazy man, crazy!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As I said at the beginning, I have had to take some dramatic licence with this story. Most of what I have written is based on historical accounts, however the aspect of Haley's contract being endangered due to being late was created for this story in order to provide the jeopardy. Some of Milt Gabler's comments regarding "Thirteen Women" also may not necessarily reflect his real-life views on the song (except that it was true he thought it was the hit, not Rock Around the Clock). Dave Miller probably wasn't as sweary in real life either bit I assume he would have been ticked to have his top-selling group jump ship.
> 
> Clara's interest in Sinatra was inspired by Jenna Coleman's real-life interest in the crooner.
> 
> Tamsin Drew is a companion featured in the Big Finish audio dramas. Her story arc with the Monk (or Mortimus as he is named in the audios) is referenced here. 
> 
> Winnie Clarence is the echo Twelve and Clara encountered in the 2015 Doctor Who Magazine comic strip "Blood and Ice".
> 
> The reference to Barbara Wright's memoirs being adapted for a movie is a nod to John Peel's unauthorized book "I Am the Doctor" which suggested Barbara "wrote" the classic "Doctor Who and the Daleks" novelisation.
> 
> Much of what I wrote regarding Haley and the Comets is based on personal knowledge and research. I have taken some dramatic licence with dialogue and characterization, of course. We do not know if Dick Richards actually attended the recording session. 
> 
> Sadly, the story about Danny Cedrone dying a few months later is true. Billy Williamson and Billy Gussak both passed away in the 1990s.
> 
> Marshall, Joey and Dick quit the Comets in 1955 over a salary dispute, forming their own band, the Jodimars. One of their best known recordings was titled "Clarabella," which was later covered by the Beatles for their BBC Radio show. 
> 
> There is a song called "Rock Chicken Rock" credited to Haley as a songwriter, but he later denied writing such a thing. I don't blame him!
> 
> Marshall, Joey, Dick and Johnny, along with later Comet Franny Beecher, reunited as the Comets in the late 1980s and, while Marshall, Johnny and Franny have passed away, Joey and Dick, as of 2016, continue to perform as the Comets. Dick - who also went into acting appearing in films like My Blue Heaven and the HBO prison drama Oz - is now in his 90s and plays drums better than people a quarter his age.
> 
> I've had the honour of meeting these gentlemen on several occasions and this story is dedicated to the members of Bill Haley's Comets, and, of course, to Mr. Bill Haley himself.
> 
> I hope you enjoyed this unusual little story!
> 
> EDIT: Here's a playlist for the songs featured in this story. As far as I know they're all widely available from various sources:
> 
> Rock Around the Clock - Bill Haley and His Comets (1954 version)  
> Rock Around the Clock - Sonny Dae and His Knights  
> Thirteen Women (And Only One Man in Town) - Bill Haley and His Comets  
> Clarabella - The Jodimars (also check out the versions by the Beatles and White Stripes)  
> Straight Jacket - Bill Haley and His Comets  
> Rock Chicken Rock - Ray Coleman and his Skyrockets (yes, it's real)  
> Rockin' Thru the Rye - Bill Haley and His Comets  
> Strange Fruit - Billie Holiday  
> Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy - The Andrews Sisters (1941 version)  
> Shake Rattle and Roll - Big Joe Turner (1954 version)  
> Shake Rattle and Roll - Bill Haley and His Comets (1954 version)  
> Rock the Joint - Bill Haley and the Saddlemen (1952 version)


End file.
